JSON conversion in javascript

Question

I'm trying to stringify a multi-array variable into a JSON string in Javascript. The

//i'm using functions from http://www.json.org/json2.js

var info = new Array(max);
for (var i=0; i<max; i++) {
  var coordinate = [25 , 32];
  info[i] = coordinate;
}
var result = JSON.stringify(info);

But result doesn't look like a JSON string at all. What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

You, and many in this question, are confused about the JSON specification. The string you have is a valid JSON array.

From json.org

JSON 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.

Your example matches the second structure - the ordered list of values.

Also from json.org:

An array is an ordered collection of values. An array begins with [ (left bracket) and ends with ] (right bracket). Values are separated by , (comma).

A value can be a string in double quotes, or a number, or true or false or null, or an object or an array. These structures can be nested.

Doesn't leave much to the imagination. You've got a valid JSON array there. Have fun with it. But just to be annoyingly thorough:

From the RFC

RFC 4627, Section 2

2) JSON Grammar

A JSON text is a sequence of tokens. The set of tokens includes six structural characters, strings, numbers, and three literal names.

A JSON text is a serialized object or array.

  JSON-text = object / array

Answer 2

The result looks like this for me:

[[25,32],[25,32],[25,32],[25,32],[25,32],[25,32],[25,32],[25,32],[25,32],[25,32]]

Which is fine as far as I can see. It might look a bit weird, but that is mostly because JSON is used a lot for objects, which have a slightly different notation. You can eval the string and get the array structure back though, so it looks fine to me.