JSON.Stringify fails on Scripting.Dictionary objects

Question

I am working on an ASP classic project where I have implemented the JScript JSON class found here. It is able to interop with both VBScript and JScript and is almost exactly

Answer 1

I ended up writing a function to serialize the Dictionary type myself. Unfortunately, you'll have to go in and do a find & replace on any failed dictionary serializations. ({}) I haven't the time to figure out an automated way to do this. You're welcome to fork it on BitBucket.

Function stringifyDictionary( key, value, sp )

  dim str, val

  Select Case TypeName( sp )
    Case "String"
      sp = vbCrLf & sp
    Case "Integer"
      sp = vbCrLf & Space(sp)
    Case Else
      sp = ""
  End Select

  If TypeName( value ) = "Dictionary" Then
    str = """" & key & """:{" & sp
    For Each k in value
      val = value.Item(k)
      If Not Right(str, 1+len(sp)) = "{" & sp And Not Right(str, 1+len(sp)) = "," & sp Then
        str = str & "," & sp
      End If
      str = str & """" & k & """: "
      If TypeName( val ) = "String" Then
        If val = "" Then
          str = str & "null"
        Else
          str = str & """" & escapeJSONString( val ) & """"
        End If
      Else
        str = str & CStr( val )
      End If
    Next
    str = str & sp & "}"
    stringifyDictionary = str
  Else
    stringifyDictionary = value
  End If

End Function

Function escapeJSONString( str )
  escapeJSONString = replace(replace(str, "\", "\\"), """", "\""")
End Function

This was written as a function to use with JSON.stringify's replace argument (2nd arg). However you cannot pass a VBScript function as an argument. (From my experience) If you were to rewrite this function in JScript you could use it when you're calling JSON.stringify to ensure that Dictionaries do get rendered properly. See the readme on BitBucket for more on that. Here's how I implemented it:

dim spaces: spaces = 2
dim prodJSON: prodJSON = JSON.stringify( oProduct, Nothing, spaces)
prodJSON = replace(prodJSON, """Specs"": {}", stringifyDictionary("Specs", oProduct.Specs, spaces * 2))

Known issues:

• The closing } for the Dictionary serialization will be the same number of indentations as the properties it contains. I didn't have time to figure out how to deal with that without adding another argument which I don't want to do.