What is JSON and why would I use it?

Question

I've looked on wikipedia and Googled it and read the official documentation, but I still haven't got to the point where I really understand what JSON is, and why I'd use it.

I have been building applications using PHP, MySQL and Javascript / HTML for a while, and if JSON can do something to make my life easier or my code better or my user interface better, then I'd like to know about it. Can someone give me a succinct explanation?

Answer 1

The JSON format is often used for serializing and transmitting structured data over a network connection. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, serving as an alternative to XML.

Answer 2

Sometimes technicality is given where none is required, and while many of the top voted answers are accurately technical and specific, I personally don't think they are any more easy to understand, or succinct, as what can be found on Wikipedia, or in official documentation.

The way I like to think of JSON is exactly what it is - a language within a world of different languages. However, the difference between JSON and other languages is that "everyone" "speaks" JSON, along with their "native language."

Using a real world example, let's pretend we have three people. One person speaks Igbo as their native tongue. The second person would like to interact with the first person, however, the first person speaks Yoruba as their first language.

What can we do?

Thankfully, the third person in our example grew up speaking English, but also happens to speak both Igbo and Yoruba as second languages, and so can act as an intermediary between the first two individuals.

In the programming world, the first "person" is Python, the second "person" is Ruby, and the third "person" is JSON, who just so happens to be able to "translate" Ruby into Python and vice versa! Now obviously this analogy isn't a perfect one, but, as someone who is bilingual, I believe it's an easy way to look at how JSON interacts with other programming languages.

Answer 3

I like JSON mainly because it's so terse. For web content that can be gzipped, this isn't necessarily a big deal (hence why xhtml is so popular). But there are occasions where this can be beneficial.

For example, for one project I was transmitting information that needed to be serialized and transmitted via XMPP. Since most servers will limit the amount of data you can transmit in a single message, I found it helpful to use JSON over the obvious alternative, XML.

As an added bonus, if you're familiar with Python or Javascript, you already pretty much know JSON and can interpret it without much training at all.