Is JSON.parse supposed to be recursive?

Question

I am parsing a json string like so:

ring = JSON.parse(response);

Now, ring is an object but ring.stones is just a string when it should be an object as well.

If I call:

ring.stones = JSON.parse(ring.stones);

It is now the correct object.

I didn't know if this is correct behavior or if maybe I have an issue somewhere stopping it from parsing recursively? If it is supposed to parse recursively, are there any known issues that would prevent it?

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Update

Here is the full response before parsing:

{"ring_id":"9","stone_count":"4","style_number":"style 4","syn10":"436.15","gen10":"489.39","syn14":"627.60","gen14":"680.85","available":"yes","type":"ring","engravings_count":"0","engravings_char_count":"0","engravings_band":"10","stones":"[{\"stone_id\":\"27\",\"ring_id\":\"9\",\"stone_shape\":\"round\",\"stone_x\":\"132.80\",\"stone_y\":\"114.50\",\"stone_width\":\"71.60\",\"stone_height\":\"71.60\",\"stone_rotation\":\"0.00\",\"stone_number\":\"1\",\"stone_mm_width\":\"5.00\",\"stone_mm_height\":\"5.00\"},{\"stone_id\":\"28\",\"ring_id\":\"9\",\"stone_shape\":\"round\",\"stone_x\":\"100.50\",\"stone_y\":\"166.20\",\"stone_width\":\"36.20\",\"stone_height\":\"36.60\",\"stone_rotation\":\"0.00\",\"stone_number\":\"2\",\"stone_mm_width\":\"2.50\",\"stone_mm_height\":\"2.50\"},{\"stone_id\":\"29\",\"ring_id\":\"9\",\"stone_shape\":\"round\",\"stone_x\":\"200.20\",\"stone_y\":\"105.10\",\"stone_width\":\"33.90\",\"stone_height\":\"33.90\",\"stone_rotation\":\"0.00\",\"stone_number\":\"3\",\"stone_mm_width\":\"2.50\",\"stone_mm_height\":\"2.50\"},{\"stone_id\":\"30\",\"ring_id\":\"9\",\"stone_shape\":\"round\",\"stone_x\":\"165.80\",\"stone_y\":\"82.50\",\"stone_width\":\"35.50\",\"stone_height\":\"33.90\",\"stone_rotation\":\"0.00\",\"stone_number\":\"4\",\"stone_mm_width\":\"2.50\",\"stone_mm_height\":\"2.50\"}]","images":"[{\"title\":\"white gold\",\"source\":\"Style4_4_W_M.png\"},{\"title\":\"yellow gold\",\"source\":\"Style4_4_Y_M.png\"}]"}

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Update 2

Based on mikerobi's answer I was able to figure out what was happening:

Here is where I encoded it:

$row = $sth->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

$row['stones'] = getStones($ring_id);
$row['images'] = getRingVariations($ring_id);

return json_encode($row);

But the functions getStones and getRingVariations were returning json_encode'd strings. I needed to change them to return plain strings.

Answer 1

Your JSON structure is wrong, it is wrapping stones in quotes, turning it into a string.

Your JSON looks like:

{
    stones: "[{\"stone_id":\"27\"},{\"stone_id\":\"27\"}]"
}

It should look like:

{
    stones: [{"stone_id": 27},{"stone_id": 27}]
}

EDIT

It appears you are converting all values to string, including numbers, I updated my example to reflect this.

Also, I'm guessing by the output that you are writing your own code to serialize the JSON, I highly recommend using an existing library.

Answer 2

It is recursive, but your input string (response) is not in correct format. Get rid of those escape characters (\") and try again.