What is JSON and why would I use it?

Question

I\'ve looked on wikipedia and Googled it and read the official documentation, but I still haven\'t got to the point where I really understand what JSON is, and why I\'d use

Answer 1

Understanding JSON

JSON is just a text format that most REST APIs use to return their data. Another common format is XML, but XML is quite a bit more verbose.

Here’s a small example of JSON:

// JSON object
{
  "name": "John",
  "age": 20
}

// JSON array
[
  {
    "name": "John",
    "age": 20
  },
  {
    "name": "Peter",
    "age": 22
  }
]

Notice that the snippet starts with a brace {, which indicates an object. JSON can also start as an array, which uses the square bracket [ symbol to signify the start of the array. JSON needs to be properly formatted, so all beginning { and [ symbols need to have their ending symbols: } and ].

JSON can contain object or array. An object in JSON is wrapped inside the braces { … }, while an array is wrapped inside square brackets [ … ].

JSON structures data by key-value. Key is always a string, but value could be anything (String, number, JSON object, JSON array…). This will affect the way we parse JSON in the next steps.