How to check if a string is a valid JSON string in JavaScript without using Try/Catch

Question

Something like:

var jsonString = \'{ \"Id\": 1, \"Name\": \"Coke\" }\';

//should be true
IsJsonString(jsonString);

//should be false
IsJsonString(\"foo\");         


        

Answer 1

I thought I'd add my approach, in the context of a practical example. I use a similar check when dealing with values going in and coming out of Memjs, so even though the value saved may be string, array or object, Memjs expects a string. The function first checks if a key/value pair already exists, if it does then a precheck is done to determine if value needs to be parsed before being returned:

  function checkMem(memStr) {
    let first = memStr.slice(0, 1)
    if (first === '[' || first === '{') return JSON.parse(memStr)
    else return memStr
  }

Otherwise, the callback function is invoked to create the value, then a check is done on the result to see if the value needs to be stringified before going into Memjs, then the result from the callback is returned.

  async function getVal() {
    let result = await o.cb(o.params)
    setMem(result)
    return result

    function setMem(result) {
      if (typeof result !== 'string') {
        let value = JSON.stringify(result)
        setValue(key, value)
      }
      else setValue(key, result)
    }
  }

The complete code is below. Of course this approach assumes that the arrays/objects going in and coming out are properly formatted (i.e. something like "{ key: 'testkey']" would never happen, because all the proper validations are done before the key/value pairs ever reach this function). And also that you are only inputting strings into memjs and not integers or other non object/arrays-types.

async function getMem(o) {
  let resp
  let key = JSON.stringify(o.key)
  let memStr = await getValue(key)
  if (!memStr) resp = await getVal()
  else resp = checkMem(memStr)
  return resp

  function checkMem(memStr) {
    let first = memStr.slice(0, 1)
    if (first === '[' || first === '{') return JSON.parse(memStr)
    else return memStr
  }

  async function getVal() {
    let result = await o.cb(o.params)
    setMem(result)
    return result

    function setMem(result) {
      if (typeof result !== 'string') {
        let value = JSON.stringify(result)
        setValue(key, value)
      }
      else setValue(key, result)
    }
  }
}