JavaScript Object Notation / JSON

World’s Most Prominent Structured Data Language

{
    "pie": "Apple",
    "numbers": [10, 3.141592653589, 6.673e-11],
    "likes": true,
    "nothing": null,
    "rhyme": "Little Jack Horner stuck in his thumb\nAnd pulled out a plumb"
  }

JavaScript Object Notation is an open standard, human-readable file format used for structured data and data interchange usually over the Internet. It is widely regarded as the standard for such data exchange. The format itself includes four simple data formats:

Simple formats can be used in one of the two compound collection types:

This simplicity allows JSON to be used universally by all programming langauges to read and write structured data.

Human Readable, Yes. Writable? Not Really.

JSON was made to fast data storage and interchange between programs, not really humans. Being human-readable is a plus because humans can quickly see what is going on. But humans have a harder time writing it because it lacks any support for line returns. All string data is one big long line. For this reason YAML, which is 100% backward compatible with JSON, is preferred by the industry for data that must be written and maintained by humans.

JSON saved the world from XML. Be very grateful.

See Also