W2271 JSON FILES
What is JSON?[edit]
JSON or Javascript Object Notation is a text-based language-independent data-interchange format very similar to XML or YAML. Although JSON can be used with almost every major coding language, JSON wouldn’t be correctly classified as a “programming language” per se, rather it’s a text-based open standard method of storing, sending, and retrieving data between a client and server. JSON is a very important data representation format, as it is widely used to facilitate the majority of web-based API calls and is very common in facilitating communication between servers and clients in a wide array of applications.
What is the motivation for learning JSON?[edit]
There are several reasons learning JSON can be beneficial for developers, especially those early in their coding career. First off, learning JSON gives developers an easy path to working with a multitude of web-based applications and services that are written in Javascript. Since JSON is a superset of JavaScript, anything you write in JSON can be interpreted by JaveScript compliers, lowering the barrier for entry to working with Javascript-based applications and services. Furthermore, since JSON is a text-only data-interchange format, it is intuitive and the intention of a snippet of JSON can be interpreted easily. Further, nearly every major coding language today has a JSON library allowing JSON to be injected and interpreted by compliers independent of the coding language you wish to write in.
Using JSON with JavaScript[edit]
Converting JSON to Javascript is quite easy. In fact, there are a series of Javascript functions that can be called to parse JSON into a Javascript object.
With JSON.parse(), for instance, developers can input a JSON string anf convert the text to a Javascript object.
JavaScript also has a built in function for converting an object into a JSON string:
JSON.stringify()
