Department of Computer Science Cal State East Bay, Hayward, CA 94542. JSON Overview and parsing Slides courtesy: Dr. Lynne Grewe Department of Computer Science Cal State East Bay, Hayward, CA 94542.
What is JSON JavaScript Object Notation Used to format data Commonly used in Web as a vehicle to describe data being sent between systems
JSON example “JSON” stands for “JavaScript Object Notation” Despite the name, JSON is a (mostly) language-independent way of specifying objects as name-value pairs Example (http://secretgeek.net/json_3mins.asp): {"skillz": { "web":[ { "name": "html", "years": 5 }, { "name": "css", "years": 3 }] "database":[ { "name": "sql", "years": 7 }] }}
JSON syntax An object is an unordered set of name/value pairs The pairs are enclosed within braces, { } There is a colon between the name and the value Pairs are separated by commas Example: { "name": "html", "years": 5 } An array is an ordered collection of values The values are enclosed within brackets, [ ] Values are separated by commas Example: [ "html", ”xml", "css" ]
JSON syntax A value can be: A string, a number, true, false, null, an object, or an array Values can be nested Strings are enclosed in double quotes, and can contain the usual assortment of escaped characters Numbers have the usual C/C++/Java syntax, including exponential (E) notation All numbers are decimal--no octal or hexadecimal Whitespace can be used between any pair of tokens
How to turn JSON into JavaScript object –eval(*) The JavaScript eval(string) method compiles and executes the given string The string can be an expression, a statement, or a sequence of statements Expressions can include variables and object properties eval returns the value of the last expression evaluated When applied to JSON, eval returns the described object
JSON and—methods? In addition to instance variables, objects typically have methods There is nothing in the JSON specification about methods However, a method can be represented as a string, and (when received by the client) evaluated with eval Obviously, this breaks language-independence Also, JavaScript is rarely used on the server side
Comparison of JSON and XML Similarities: Both are human readable Both have very simple syntax Both are hierarchical Both are language independent Both can be used by Ajax Both supported in APIs of many programming languages Differences: Syntax is different JSON is less verbose JSON can be parsed by JavaScript’s eval method JSON includes arrays Names in JSON must not be JavaScript reserved words XML can be validated
JSON in AJAX JSON can be used in AJAX as follows: Include it in HTML directly <html>... <script> var data = JSONdata; </script>... </html> JSON is used with XMLHttpRequest and can be converted into a JavaScript structure responseData = eval('(' + responseText + ')'); We have not yet spoken about AJAX --- revisit this again after you have learned about AJAX
Why is JSON better suited for AJAX? JSON is widely used in AJAX. The X in AJAX stands for XML. E.g. { "fullname": "Swati Kumar", "org": "Columbia", } <?xml version='1.0‘ encoding='UTF-8'?> <element> <fullname>Swati Kumar</fullname> <org>Columbia</org> </element>
JSON response at client side is: var name = eval('(' + req.responseText + ')').fullname.value; To access a composite element eval('(' + req.responseText + ')').xyz.abc.value; Thus, any level deep elements can be easily accessed.
XML and JavaScript XML response at client side is: var root = req.responseXML; var name = root.getElementsByTagName(‘fullname’); To access a composite element root.getElementsByTagName(‘xyz’)[0].firstChild To access deeper levels we need more overhead. Reduced extensibility in XML
YAML – another option? YAML can be taken as an acronym for either Yet Another Markup Language YAML Ain’t Markup Language Like JSON, the purpose of YAML is to represent typical data types in human-readable notation YAML is (almost) a superset of JSON, with many more capabilities (lists, casting, etc.) Except: YAML doesn’t handle escaped Unicode characters Consequently, JSON can be parsed by YAML parsers When JSON isn’t enough, consider YAML
How to parse JSON in Java JSON and Java How to parse JSON in Java
Mapping between JSON and Java entities string java.lang.String number java.lang.Number true|false java.lang.Boolean null array java.util.List object java.util.Map JSON.simple maps entities from the left side to the right side while decoding or parsing, and maps entities from the right to the left while encoding. On decoding, the default concrete class of java.util.List isorg.json.simple.JSONArray and the default concrete class of java.util.Map isorg.json.simple.JSONObject.
JSON reading in Java example
There is an interface called JSONParser in javax. json There is an interface called JSONParser in javax.json.stream you can implement javax.json.stream Interface JsonParser