Is JSON a language, if not how would it be classified?

Question

Considering JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), is JSON itself a language, or is it only defined in context of another language? By language, I mean a programming language that might be using JSON to transmit/receive data.

It is interesting that XML is not Turing complete, yet has language in its name. Perhaps this implies a broader definition of language for this purpose?

Answer 1

It's a data interchange format.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format.

http://json.org

JavaScript Object Notation is a text-based open standard designed for human-readable data interchange.

Type of format: Data interchange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Json

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is it only defined in context of a language

Certainly not. It is entirely possible to write applications which use JSON but not JavaScript.

Answer 2

I would classify it as a format of structured data, not a language. This Wikipedia article about Turing completeness does a pretty good job summing it up:

The notion of Turing-completeness does not apply to languages such as XML, HTML, JSON, YAML and S-expressions, because they are typically used to represent structured data, not describe computation. These are sometimes referred to as markup languages, or more properly as "container languages" or "data description languages".