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JSON Tutorial

JSON: JavaScript Object Notation. JSON is a lightweight, text-based format for storing and exchanging data. JSON is often used when data is sent from a server to a web page, serving as a popular alternative to XML.

JSON Example

The following example shows JSON data representing an employees object, which contains an array of three employee records:

{
  "employees": [
    {
      "firstName": "Alice",
      "lastName": "Green"
    },
    {
      "firstName": "Bob",
      "lastName": "Smith"
    },
    {
      "firstName": "Charlie",
      "lastName": "Brown"
    }
  ]
}

XML Equivalent Example

For comparison, the same data structure represented in XML might look like this:

<employees>
  <employee>
    <firstName>Alice</firstName>
    <lastName>Green</lastName>
  </employee>
  <employee>
    <firstName>Bob</firstName>
    <lastName>Smith</lastName>
  </employee>
  <employee>
    <firstName>Charlie</firstName>
    <lastName>Brown</lastName>
  </employee>
</employees>

Notice that the JSON version is generally more concise.

What is JSON?

• JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation.
• It is a lightweight data-interchange format.
• It is language independent*, meaning it can be used with most modern programming languages.
• It is considered “self-describing” and relatively easy for humans to understand.

*	JSON uses JavaScript syntax conventions, but the format itself is purely text. Any programming language capable of processing text can parse and generate JSON data.

JSON is commonly used for:

• Transmitting data between a server and web application (APIs).
• Configuration files.
• Storing unstructured data in some databases.