Serializing to JSON in jQuery [duplicate]

Question

JSON-js - JSON in JavaScript.

To convert an object to a string, use JSON.stringify:

var json_text = JSON.stringify(your_object, null, 2);

To convert a JSON string to object, use JSON.parse:

var your_object = JSON.parse(json_text);

It was recently recommended by John Resig:

...PLEASE start migrating your JSON-using applications over to Crockford's json2.js. It is fully compatible with the ECMAScript 5 specification and gracefully degrades if a native (faster!) implementation exists.

In fact, I just landed a change in jQuery yesterday that utilizes the JSON.parse method if it exists, now that it has been completely specified.

I tend to trust what he says on JavaScript matters :)

All modern browsers (and many older ones which aren't ancient) support the JSON object natively. The current version of Crockford's JSON library will only define JSON.stringify and JSON.parse if they're not already defined, leaving any browser native implementation intact.

I've been using jquery-json for 6 months and it works great. It's very simple to use:

var myObj = {foo: "bar", "baz": "wockaflockafliz"};
$.toJSON(myObj);

// Result: {"foo":"bar","baz":"wockaflockafliz"}

Works on IE8+

No need for jQuery, use:

JSON.stringify(countries); 

I haven't used it but you might want to try the jQuery plugin written by Mark Gibson

It adds the two functions: $.toJSON(value), $.parseJSON(json_str, [safe]).

No, the standard way to serialize to JSON is to use an existing JSON serialization library. If you don't wish to do this, then you're going to have to write your own serialization methods.

If you want guidance on how to do this, I'd suggest examining the source of some of the available libraries.

EDIT: I'm not going to come out and say that writing your own serliazation methods is bad, but you must consider that if it's important to your application to use well-formed JSON, then you have to weigh the overhead of "one more dependency" against the possibility that your custom methods may one day encounter a failure case that you hadn't anticipated. Whether that risk is acceptable is your call.

I did find this somewhere. Can't remember where though... probably on StackOverflow :)

$.fn.serializeObject = function(){
    var o = {};
    var a = this.serializeArray();
    $.each(a, function() {
        if (o[this.name]) {
            if (!o[this.name].push) {
                o[this.name] = [o[this.name]];
            }
            o[this.name].push(this.value || '');
        } else {
            o[this.name] = this.value || '';
        }
    });
    return o;
};

If you don't want to use external libraries there is .toSource() native JavaScript method, but it's not perfectly cross-browser.