Why is the slash an escapable character in JSON? [duplicate]

Answer 1

It seems, my first thought was correct.

'\/' === '/' in JavaScript, and JSON almost is valid JavaScript. However, why are the other ignored escapes (like \z) not allowed in JSON?

The key for this was reading http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/revsol.html, followed by http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/appendix/notes.html#h-B.3.2. The feature of the slash escape allows JSON to be embedded in HTML (as SGML) and XML.

Answer 2

I've just published a review of this issue on my blog. I think you are right, that's the only reason. Also note that the slash is the only standard character allowed to be escaped.

Usually JSON encoders do it wrong and escape any slash they find along the way, while only the slash in </script> should be escaped, and maybe all the ones matched by the JavaScript RegExp /<\/\w+/, for the same reason.

EDIT: fixed blog link.