Create JSON from string, to use as object

Question

So I want to create this JSON object:

{
   "id":"3",
   "created":"0000-00-00",
   "parentIDs":null,
   "childIDs":"",
   "uid":"movies",
   "title":"Movies",
   "related":"movies",
   "pos":"",
   "css":"{ "background-image":"-webkit-linear-gradient(bottom, rgb(46,44,46) 49%, rgb(18,17,18) 75%)" }"
}

from string:

value = ""id":"3","created":"0000-00-00","parentIDs":null,"childIDs":"","uid":"imdb","title":"Imdb","related":"movies","pos":"""

This string comes from a database, so I can't really change the formatting, but it should be correct like this.

(This string originates from an array of similiar strings, which I iterate through, somehow losing the {} around them)

I tried removing the outer quotes with value.substr(1, value.length - 2);. And then convert it with .toJSON(); but it only adds a whole lot of extra slashes I don't need.

I just need to add {} around it, and then javascript would see it as a JSON object.

Is there any shorthand way of doing that? or is there a small library that can convert my messy string in a clever way to a JSON object?

[update]

I tried: eval('{' + value + '}'); But i get Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token : in Chrome.

I tried JSON.parse but get: TypeError: JSON.parse is not a function in Chrome and Firefox, it must be the string's formatting. I'm beginning to suspect the "css" entry, although it starts complaining at the first "id" entry, it's expecting a function instead of JSON?

(I cut down the raw JSON, but forgot the most important "css" one)

[update2]

Ok, so I changed the css data to ' instead of ", now it will actually parse, but now my script is broken, because I'm expecting raw CSS from the db, any way to change the resulting 'css':'blabla' to: "css":"blabla" ?

Answer 1

If you have a string that contains valid JSON, you can convert it to a JavaScript Object using JSON.parse().

Assuming you have a string:

value = '"id":"3","created":"0000-00-00","parentIDs":null,"childIDs":"","uid":"imdb","title":"Imdb","related":"movies","pos":""';

you would then do:

obj = JSON.parse("{"+value+"}");JSON

Note it needs the {} as part of the string to be a valid JSON string.