.NET Information center: What is JSON?

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

What is JSON?

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language, Standard ECMA-262 3rd Edition - December 1999. JSON is a text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others. These properties make JSON an ideal data-interchange language.

A JSON document is built on two 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 as such all modern programming languages support them in one form or another.