How to escape JSON string?

Question

Are there any classes/functions available to be used for easy JSON escaping? I'd rather not have to write my own.

Answer 1

I use System.Web.HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode

string quoted = HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode(input);

Answer 2

For those using the very popular Json.Net project from Newtonsoft the task is trivial:

using Newtonsoft.Json;

....
var s = JsonConvert.ToString(@"a\b");
Console.WriteLine(s);
....

This code prints:

"a\\b"

That is, the resulting string value contains the quotes as well as the escaped backslash.

Answer 3

Building on the answer by Dejan, what you can do is import System.Web.Helpers .NET Framework assembly, then use the following function:

static string EscapeForJson(string s) {
  string quoted = System.Web.Helpers.Json.Encode(s);
  return quoted.Substring(1, quoted.Length - 2);
}

The Substring call is required, since Encode automatically surrounds strings with double quotes.

Answer 4

Yep, just add the following function to your Utils class or something:

    public static string cleanForJSON(string s)
    {
        if (s == null || s.Length == 0) {
            return "";
        }

        char         c = '\0';
        int          i;
        int          len = s.Length;
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(len + 4);
        String       t;

        for (i = 0; i < len; i += 1) {
            c = s[i];
            switch (c) {
                case '\\':
                case '"':
                    sb.Append('\\');
                    sb.Append(c);
                    break;
                case '/':
                    sb.Append('\\');
                    sb.Append(c);
                    break;
                case '\b':
                    sb.Append("\\b");
                    break;
                case '\t':
                    sb.Append("\\t");
                    break;
                case '\n':
                    sb.Append("\\n");
                    break;
                case '\f':
                    sb.Append("\\f");
                    break;
                case '\r':
                    sb.Append("\\r");
                    break;
                default:
                    if (c < ' ') {
                        t = "000" + String.Format("X", c);
                        sb.Append("\\u" + t.Substring(t.Length - 4));
                    } else {
                        sb.Append(c);
                    }
                    break;
            }
        }
        return sb.ToString();
    }

Answer 5

I have used following code to escape the string value for json. You need to add your '"' to the output of the following code:

public static string EscapeStringValue(string value)
{
    const char BACK_SLASH = '\\';
    const char SLASH = '/';
    const char DBL_QUOTE = '"';

    var output = new StringBuilder(value.Length);
    foreach (char c in value)
    {
        switch (c)
        {
            case SLASH:
                output.AppendFormat("{0}{1}", BACK_SLASH, SLASH);
                break;

            case BACK_SLASH:
                output.AppendFormat("{0}{0}", BACK_SLASH);
                break;

            case DBL_QUOTE:
                output.AppendFormat("{0}{1}",BACK_SLASH,DBL_QUOTE);
                break;

            default:
                output.Append(c);
                break;
        }
    }

    return output.ToString();
}

Answer 6

The methods offered here are faulty.
Why venture that far when you could just use System.Web.HttpUtility.JavaScriptEncode ?

If you're on a lower framework, you can just copy paste it from mono

Courtesy of the mono-project @ https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/mcs/class/System.Web/System.Web/HttpUtility.cs

    public static string JavaScriptStringEncode(string value, bool addDoubleQuotes)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
            return addDoubleQuotes ? "\"\"" : string.Empty;

        int len = value.Length;
        bool needEncode = false;
        char c;
        for (int i = 0; i < len; i++)
        {
            c = value[i];

            if (c >= 0 && c <= 31 || c == 34 || c == 39 || c == 60 || c == 62 || c == 92)
            {
                needEncode = true;
                break;
            }
        }

        if (!needEncode)
            return addDoubleQuotes ? "\"" + value + "\"" : value;

        var sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
        if (addDoubleQuotes)
            sb.Append('"');

        for (int i = 0; i < len; i++)
        {
            c = value[i];
            if (c >= 0 && c <= 7 || c == 11 || c >= 14 && c <= 31 || c == 39 || c == 60 || c == 62)
                sb.AppendFormat("\\u{0:x4}", (int)c);
            else switch ((int)c)
                {
                    case 8:
                        sb.Append("\\b");
                        break;

                    case 9:
                        sb.Append("\\t");
                        break;

                    case 10:
                        sb.Append("\\n");
                        break;

                    case 12:
                        sb.Append("\\f");
                        break;

                    case 13:
                        sb.Append("\\r");
                        break;

                    case 34:
                        sb.Append("\\\"");
                        break;

                    case 92:
                        sb.Append("\\\\");
                        break;

                    default:
                        sb.Append(c);
                        break;
                }
        }

        if (addDoubleQuotes)
            sb.Append('"');

        return sb.ToString();
    }

This can be compacted into

// https://github.com/mono/mono/blob/master/mcs/class/System.Json/System.Json/JsonValue.cs
public class SimpleJSON
{

    private static  bool NeedEscape(string src, int i)
    {
        char c = src[i];
        return c < 32 || c == '"' || c == '\\'
            // Broken lead surrogate
            || (c >= '\uD800' && c <= '\uDBFF' &&
                (i == src.Length - 1 || src[i + 1] < '\uDC00' || src[i + 1] > '\uDFFF'))
            // Broken tail surrogate
            || (c >= '\uDC00' && c <= '\uDFFF' &&
                (i == 0 || src[i - 1] < '\uD800' || src[i - 1] > '\uDBFF'))
            // To produce valid JavaScript
            || c == '\u2028' || c == '\u2029'
            // Escape "</" for <script> tags
            || (c == '/' && i > 0 && src[i - 1] == '<');
    }



    public static string EscapeString(string src)
    {
        System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();

        int start = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < src.Length; i++)
            if (NeedEscape(src, i))
            {
                sb.Append(src, start, i - start);
                switch (src[i])
                {
                    case '\b': sb.Append("\\b"); break;
                    case '\f': sb.Append("\\f"); break;
                    case '\n': sb.Append("\\n"); break;
                    case '\r': sb.Append("\\r"); break;
                    case '\t': sb.Append("\\t"); break;
                    case '\"': sb.Append("\\\""); break;
                    case '\\': sb.Append("\\\\"); break;
                    case '/': sb.Append("\\/"); break;
                    default:
                        sb.Append("\\u");
                        sb.Append(((int)src[i]).ToString("x04"));
                        break;
                }
                start = i + 1;
            }
        sb.Append(src, start, src.Length - start);
        return sb.ToString();
    }
}

Answer 7

In .Net Core 3+ and .Net 5+:

string escapedJsonString = JsonEncodedText.Encode(jsonString);

Answer 8

I ran speed tests on some of these answers for a long string and a short string. Clive Paterson's code won by a good bit, presumably because the others are taking into account serialization options. Here are my results:

Apple Banana
System.Web.HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode: 140ms
System.Web.Helpers.Json.Encode: 326ms
Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.ToString: 230ms
Clive Paterson: 108ms

\\some\long\path\with\lots\of\things\to\escape\some\long\path\t\with\lots\of\n\things\to\escape\some\long\path\with\lots\of\"things\to\escape\some\long\path\with\lots"\of\things\to\escape
System.Web.HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode: 2849ms
System.Web.Helpers.Json.Encode: 3300ms
Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.ToString: 2827ms
Clive Paterson: 1173ms

And here is the test code:

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var testStr1 = "Apple Banana";
    var testStr2 = @"\\some\long\path\with\lots\of\things\to\escape\some\long\path\t\with\lots\of\n\things\to\escape\some\long\path\with\lots\of\""things\to\escape\some\long\path\with\lots""\of\things\to\escape";

    foreach (var testStr in new[] { testStr1, testStr2 })
    {
        var results = new Dictionary<string,List<long>>();

        for (var n = 0; n < 10; n++)
        {
            var count = 1000 * 1000;

            var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
            {
                var s = System.Web.HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode(testStr);
            }
            var t = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;
            results.GetOrCreate("System.Web.HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode").Add(t);

            sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
            {
                var s = System.Web.Helpers.Json.Encode(testStr);
            }
            t = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;
            results.GetOrCreate("System.Web.Helpers.Json.Encode").Add(t);

            sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
            {
                var s = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.ToString(testStr);
            }
            t = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;
            results.GetOrCreate("Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.ToString").Add(t);

            sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
            {
                var s = cleanForJSON(testStr);
            }
            t = sw.ElapsedMilliseconds;
            results.GetOrCreate("Clive Paterson").Add(t);
        }

        Console.WriteLine(testStr);
        foreach (var result in results)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(result.Key + ": " + Math.Round(result.Value.Skip(1).Average()) + "ms");
        }
        Console.WriteLine();
    }

    Console.ReadLine();
}

Answer 9

I would also recommend using the JSON.NET library mentioned, but if you have to escape unicode characters (e.g. \uXXXX format) in the resulting JSON string, you may have to do it yourself. Take a look at Converting Unicode strings to escaped ascii string for an example.

Answer 10

I nice one-liner, used JsonConvert as others have but added substring to remove the added quotes and backslash.

 var escapedJsonString = JsonConvert.ToString(JsonString).Substring(1, JsonString.Length - 2);

Answer 11

What about System.Web.Helpers.Json.Encode(...) (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.helpers.json.encode(v=vs.111).aspx)?

Answer 12

String.Format("X", c);

That just outputs: X

Try this instead:

string t = ((int)c).ToString("X");

sb.Append("\\u" + t.PadLeft(4, '0'));

Answer 13

There's a Json library at Codeplex

Answer 14

I chose to use System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer.

I have a small static helper class defined as follows:

internal static partial class Serialization
{
    static JavaScriptSerializer serializer;
    
    static Serialization()
    {
        serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
        serializer.MaxJsonLength = Int32.MaxValue;
    }
    public static string ToJSON<T>(T obj)
    {
        return serializer.Serialize(obj);
    }
    public static T FromJSON<T>(string data)
    {
        if (Common.IsEmpty(data))
            return default(T);
        else
            return serializer.Deserialize<T>(data);
    }
}

To serialize anything I just call Serialization.ToJSON(itemToSerialize)

To deserialize I just call Serialization.FromJSON<T>(jsonValueOfTypeT)

Answer 15

.NET 6 - System.Text.Json

var encodedText = JsonEncodedText.Encode(inputText);

Answer 16

The C# method bellow is a more advanced optimization version using Span for small string inputs, to avoid heap allocation and StringBuilder for larger inputs to avoids excessive stack usage.

public static string JsonEscape(string text) {
    if (text.Length == 0) {
        return string.Empty;
    }

    if (text.Length < 1204) {
        int count = 0;
        foreach (char c in text) {
            switch (c) {
            case '\\':
            case '\"':
            case '\b':
            case '\f':
            case '\n':
            case '\r':
            case '\t':
                count += 2;
                break;

            default:
                count++;
                break;
            }
        }

        Span<char> result = stackalloc char[count];
        count = 0;
        foreach (char c in text) {
            switch (c) {
            case '\\':
            case '\"':
            case '\b':
            case '\f':
            case '\n':
            case '\r':
            case '\t':
                result[count++] = '\\';
                result[count++] = c;
                break;

            default:
                result[count++] = c;
                break;
            }
        }
        return result.ToString();
    }

    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    foreach (char c in text) {
        switch (c) {
        case '\\': sb.Append("\\\\"); break;
        case '\"': sb.Append("\\\""); break;
        case '\b': sb.Append("\\\b"); break;
        case '\f': sb.Append("\\\f"); break;
        case '\n': sb.Append("\\\n"); break;
        case '\r': sb.Append("\\\r"); break;
        case '\t': sb.Append("\\\t"); break;
        default: sb.Append(c); break;
        }
    }
    return sb.ToString();
}