22.5. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is an alternative to XML for representing data. JSON is a text-based data-interchange format used to represent objects in JavaScript as collections of name/value pairs represented as Strings. It is commonly used in Ajax applications. JSON is a simple format that makes objects easy to read, create and parse, and allows programs to transmit data efficiently across the Internet because it is much less verbose than XML. Each JSON object is represented as a list of property names and values contained in curly braces, in the following format:

{ propertyName1 : value1, propertyName2 : value2 }

Arrays are represented in JSON with square brackets in the following format:

[ value1, value2, value3 ]