How to parse pretty JSON in JavaScript

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to parse JSON in JavaScript

If you have JSON formatted like this:

{
  "id": 10,
  "user": {
    "email": "example.com"
  }
}

What is the standard way of parsing that into a JSON object in JavaScript? The use case is if a user is entering JSON into a textarea, parsing that out.

I started doing this but don't want to go down this road if there's already a robust/standard solution:

JSON.parse($('#the-textarea').val().replace(/^\s+/mg, '').replace(/\n/g, '')); // not quite right yet, still not parsable...

`JSON.parse()`? There shouldn't be any need to un-pretty it. — Marc B, Aug 02 '12 at 22:12
[There's no such thing as a "JSON Object"](http://benalman.com/news/2010/03/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-json/). — Felix Kling, Aug 02 '12 at 22:35

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 02 '12 at 22:13

5

You don't need to do anything. This non-significant whitespace does not make for invalid JSON and will be ignored by the parser.

answered Aug 02 '12 at 22:13

Jon

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It is not working for me for some reason, it's saying `SyntaxError: Unexpected token`... – Lance Aug 02 '12 at 22:15
1

@LancePollard: There's a comma missing after the `10`. – Jon Aug 02 '12 at 22:17
Sorry, that wasn't the issue, here is the problem: http://jsfiddle.net/eLxgB/1/ – Lance Aug 02 '12 at 22:22
1

@LancePollard: Those ` ` entities are *not* valid JSON though (the browser renders them as whitespace when part of HTML, but they mess up JSON). [If you remove them it's all good](http://jsfiddle.net/G6HbG/). – Jon Aug 02 '12 at 22:24

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 02 '12 at 22:16

This should do the trick:

var result = jQuery.parseJSON(jQuery('#the-textarea').val());

By the way, your example is not valid JSON, it's missing a comma. Here is a valid JSON example:

{
  "id": 10,
  "user": {
    "email": "example.com"
  }
}

http://jsonlint.com/ is your friend ;)

How to parse pretty JSON in JavaScript

2 Answers2