How to parse JSON easily?

Question

I have some JSON encoded strings and I need to easily parse them. Any ideas how to do this? I am a noob in javaScript and I can't do it myself. I read that parsing json is really hard.

Please help!

Answer 1

JSON.parse() is defined in most Javascript environments these days.

Answer 2

try to take a look at http://www.json.org/js.html. You need something like:

var myObject = JSON.parse(myJSONtext, reviver);

Answer 3

JSON is valid Javascript, so you can eval() it:

var data = eval(json);

However it's safer to use JSON.parse()^[docs], when this function is available:

var data = JSON.parse(json);

So you could do something like this:

if (window.JSON) {
    data = JSON.parse(json);
} else {
    data = eval('('+json+')');
}

Note the use of parenthesis in eval(). See @CMS's comment and this.

You could also use an existing library, like this one (adds JSON.parse on browsers that do not have it).

If you are using jQuery, use $.parseJSON()^[docs].