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JSON - Introduction

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Try it Yourself

With our editor, you can edit JavaScript code online and click on a button to view the result:

JSON Example

<html>
<body>
<h2>JSON Object Creation in JavaScript</h2>

<p>
Name: <span id="jname"></span><br />
Age: <span id="jage"></span><br />
Address: <span id="jstreet"></span><br />
Phone: <span id="jphone"></span><br />
</p>

Try it yourself »
Click on the "Try it yourself" button to see how it works

Much Like XML

JSON is plain text
JSON is "self-describing" (human readable)
JSON is hierarchical (values within values)
JSON can be parsed by JavaScript
JSON data can be transported using AJAX

Much Unlike XML

No end tag
Shorter
Quicker to read and write
Can be parsed using built-in JavaScript eval()
Uses arrays
No reserved words

Why JSON?

For AJAX applications, JSON is faster and easier than XML:

Using XML

Fetch an XML document
Use the XML DOM to loop through the document
Extract values and store in variables

Using JSON

Fetch a JSON string
eval() the JSON string