Introduction to JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

Sang Shin Java Technology Architect Sun Microsystems, Inc. [email protected] www.javapassion.com

Disclaimer & Acknowledgments

Even though Sang Shin is a full-time employee of Sun Microsystems, the contents here are created as his own personal endeavor and thus does not reflect any official stance of Sun Microsystems

Topics
What is JSON? JSON Data Structure
> JSON Object > JSON text

JSON and Java Technology How to send and receive JSON data at both client and server sides JSON-RPC Resources
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What is & Why JSON?

What is JSON?
Lightweight data-interchange format
> Compared to XML

Simple format
> Easy for humans to read and write > Easy for machines to parse and generate

JSON is a text format

> Programming language independent > Uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-

family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python

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Why Use JSON over XML

Lighter and faster than XML as on-the-wire data format JSON objects are typed while XML data is typeless
> JSON types: string, number, array, boolean, > XML data are all string

Native data form for JavaScript code

> Data is readily accessible as JSON objects in your JavaScript

code vs. XML data needed to be parsed and assigned to variables through tedious DOM APIs > Retrieving values is as easy as reading from an object property in your JavaScript code

Where is JSON Used?

Represent configuration information Implement communication protocols

JSON Object

JSON Structures
A collection of name/value pairs
> In various languages, this is realized as an object, record,

struct, dictionary, hash table, keyed list, or associative array

An ordered list of values

> In most languages, this is realized as an array, vector, list, or

sequence

These are universal data structures supported by most modern programming languages

JSON Object Notation

A JSON object is an unordered set of name/value pairs A JSON object begins with { (left brace) and ends with } (right brace) Each name is followed by : (colon) and the name/value pairs are separated by , (comma)

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JSON and JavaScript

JSON is a subset of the object literal notation of JavaScript
> JSON can be used in the JavaScript language with no muss

or fuss

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Example: JSON Object

var myJSONObject = {"bindings": [ {"ircEvent": "PRIVMSG", "method": "newURI", "regex": "^http://.*"}, {"ircEvent": "PRIVMSG", "method": "deleteURI", "regex": "^delete.*"}, {"ircEvent": "PRIVMSG", "method": "randomURI", "regex": "^random.*"} ] };

In this example, a JSON JavaScript object is created containing a single member "bindings", which contains an array containing three objects, each containing "ircEvent", "method", and "regex" members Members can be retrieved using dot or subscript operators
myJSONObject.bindings[0].method // "newURI"

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Text to Object Conversion in JavaScript code

var myObject = eval('(' + myJSONtext + ')');

To convert a JSON text into an JSON object, use the eval() function
> eval() invokes the JavaScript compiler > Since JSON is a proper subset of JavaScript, the compiler will

correctly parse the text and produce an object structure

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Security & JSON Parser

// Include http://www.json.org/json.js var myObject = myJSONtext.parseJSON();

eval() can compile and execute any JavaScript program, so there can be security issues (cross-site scripting)
> Use eval() when the source can be trusted

When security is a concern - the source cannot be trusted -, it is better to use a JSON parser
> A JSON parser will only recognize JSON text and so is much

safer

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Object to Text Conversion

var myJSONText = myObject.toJSONString();

You can convert JSON object into JSON text JSON does not support cyclic data structure
> Do not give cyclical structures to the JSON stringifier

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JSON in Java

JSON Tools for Java Developer

Parser
> Parse JSON text files and convert these to a Java model

Renderer
> Render a Java representation into text

Serializer
> Serialize plain POJO clusters to a JSON representation

Validator
> Validate the contents of a JSON file using a JSON schema

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JSONObject Java Class

A JSONObject is an unordered collection of name/value pairs The put methods adds a name/value pair to an object The texts produced by the toString methods strictly conform to the JSON syntax rules
myString = new JSONObject().put("JSON", "Hello, World!").toString(); // myString is {"JSON": "Hello, World"}
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How to Send & Receive JSON Data at Both Client and Server Side

How to Generate/Send JSON Data at the Server Side

Create JSONObject Java object Add name/value pairs using put method Convert it to String type using toString method and send it to the client with content-type as text/xml or text/plain
myString = new JSONObject().put("JSON", "Hello, World!").toString(); // myString is {"JSON": "Hello, World"}
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How to Receive JSON Data at the Client Side

JSON data is received as a string Calling eval() will generate JSON object in JavaScript code
> var JSONdata = eval(req.responseText);

Once you have JSON object, you can use . notation to access its properties
> var name = JSONdata.name; > var address = JSONdata.addresses[3]; > var streetname = JSONdata.addresses[3].street;

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How to Generate/Send JSON Data at the Client Side

Create JSON JavaScript object Use POST HTTP method in the open method of the XMLHttpRequest object Pass JSON JavaScript object in the send method of XMLHttpRequest object
var carAsJSON = JSON.stringify(car); var url = "JSONExample?timeStamp=" + new Date().getTime(); createXMLHttpRequest(); xmlHttp.open("POST", url, true); xmlHttp.onreadystatechange = handleStateChange; xmlHttp.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); xmlHttp.send(carAsJSON); 22

How to Receive JSON Data at the Server Side

Read the JSON data as a String type Create JSONObject Java object from the string
String json = readJSONStringFromRequestBody(request); //Use the JSON-Java binding library to create a JSON object in Java JSONObject jsonObject = null; try { jsonObject = new JSONObject(json); } catch(ParseException pe) { } 23

JSON-RPC & JSON-RPC-Java

What is JSON-RPC? What is JSON-RPC-Java?

JSON-RPC is a simple remote procedure call protocol similar to XML-RPC although it uses the lightweight JSON format instead of XML JSON-RPC-Java is a Java implementation of the JSON-RPC protocol

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Why JSON-RPC-Java?
It allows you to transparently call server-side Java code from JavaScript with an included lightweight JSON-RPC JavaScript client It is designed to run in a Servlet container such as Tomcat and can be used with J2EE Application servers to allow calling of plain Java or EJB methods from within a JavaScript DHTML web application

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Features of JSON-RPC-Java
Dynamically call server-side Java methods from JavaScript DHTML web applications. No Page reloading. Asynchronous communications. Transparently maps Java objects to JavaScript objects. Lightweight protocol similar to XML-RPC although much faster. Leverages J2EE security model with session specific exporting of objects. Supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Konqueror
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Resources

JSON Resources
Introducing JSON
> http://www.json.org/

JSON in JavaScript
> http://www.json.org/js.html

JSON in Java
> http://www.json.org/java/index.html

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Introduction to JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

Sang Shin Java Technology Architect Sun Microsystems, Inc. [email protected] www.javapassion.com