How to convert data to json format in SQL Server 2008?

Question

I am using SQL Server 2008 and want to convert table data into json format. Can I convert it directly through firing query?

Answer 1

The above solutions seem unnecessarily complicated; starting with 2008, SQL Server supports the following syntax (answer from DBA StackExchange)

SELECT * FROM dbo.x FOR JSON AUTO;

The above query returns a single JSON-formatted column that looks like this (assuming dbo.x contains columns col1~col4of corresponding types):

[{"col1":"val1","col2":"val2","col3":5,"col4":"2019-02-11"}]

More details/options here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/json/format-query-results-as-json-with-for-json-sql-server