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The standard way to parse JSON in JavaScript is JSON.parse()
The JSON API was introduced with ES5 (2011) and has since been implemented in >99% of browsers by market share, and Node.js. Its usage is simple:
const json = '{ "fruit": "pineapple", "fingers": 10 }';
const obj = JSON.parse(json);
console.log(obj.fruit, obj.fingers);
The only time you won't be able to use JSON.parse() is if you are programming for an ancient browser, such as IE 7 (2006), IE 6 (2001), Firefox 3 (2008), Safari 3.x (2009), etc. Alternatively, you may be in an esoteric JavaScript environment that doesn't include the standard APIs. In these cases, use json2.js, the reference implementation of JSON written by Douglas Crockford, the inventor of JSON. That library will provide an implementation of JSON.parse().
When processing extremely large JSON files, JSON.parse() may choke because of its synchronous nature and design. To resolve this, the JSON website recommends third-party libraries such as Oboe.js and clarinet, which provide streaming JSON parsing.
jQuery once had a $.parseJSON() function, but it was deprecated with jQuery 3.0. In any case, for a long time, it was nothing more than a wrapper around JSON.parse().
WARNING!
This answer stems from an ancient era of JavaScript programming during which there was no builtin way to parse JSON. The advice given here is no longer applicable and probably dangerous. From a modern perspective, parsing JSON by involving jQuery or calling eval() is nonsense. Unless you need to support IE 7 or Firefox 3.0, the correct way to parse JSON is JSON.parse().
First of all, you have to make sure that the JSON code is valid.
After that, I would recommend using a JavaScript library such as jQuery or Prototype if you can because these things are handled well in those libraries.
On the other hand, if you don't want to use a library and you can vouch for the validity of the JSON object, I would simply wrap the string in an anonymous function and use the eval function.
This is not recommended if you are getting the JSON object from another source that isn't absolutely trusted because the eval function allows for renegade code if you will.
Here is an example of using the eval function:
var strJSON = '{"result":true,"count":1}';
var objJSON = eval("(function(){return " + strJSON + ";})()");
alert(objJSON.result);
alert(objJSON.count);
If you control what browser is being used or you are not worried people with an older browser, you can always use the JSON.parse method.
This is really the ideal solution for the future.
This algorithm is pretty straightforward--something like the following should work:
function parse(a) {
//create object to return
var ret = {
columns: [],
data: []
};
//iterate the source array
a.forEach(function(item, i) {
if (i === 0) {
//first time through, build the columns
for (var key in item) {
ret.columns.push(key);
}
}
//now build your data item
ret.data[i] = [];
//use the column array to guarantee that the order of the fields in the source string doesn't matter
for (var j = 0; j < ret.columns.length; j++) {
var key = ret.columns[j];
ret.data[i].push(item[key]);
}
});
return ret;
}
var j = {
"d": "[{\"ID\":\"VN00000123\",\"NAME\":\"JOHN GREEN\",\"GENDER\":\"Male\",\"BIRTHDAY\":\"15-10-1987\"},{\"NAME\":\"MERRY BLUE\",\"BIRTHDAY\":\"03-12-1983\",\"ID\":\"VN00000456\",\"GENDER\":\"Female\"},{\"GENDER\":\"Male\",\"ID\":\"VN00000789\",\"NAME\":\"BLACK BROWN\",\"BIRTHDAY\":\"09-07-1990\"}]"
};
//j is an object with one property (d) that is a JSON string that needs parsing
var o = parse(JSON.parse(j.d));
console.log(o);
You can try this example using jQuery:
https://jsfiddle.net/de02fpha/
var dump = {"d": "[{\"ID\":\"VN00000123\",\"NAME\":\"JOHN GREEN\",\"GENDER\":\"Male\",\"BIRTHDAY\":\"15-10-1987\"},{\"ID\":\"VN00000456\",\"NAME\":\"MERRY BLUE\",\"GENDER\":\"Female\",\"BIRTHDAY\":\"03-12-1983\"},{\"ID\":\"VN00000789\",\"NAME\":\"BLACK BROWN\",\"GENDER\":\"Male\",\"BIRTHDAY\":\"09-07-1990\"}]"};
var parse = function(json) {
var columns = [];
var data = [];
$.each(json, function(index, row) {
var element = [];
for (var key in row) {
if (columns.indexOf(key) == -1) columns.push(key);
element.push(row[key]);
}
data.push(element);
});
return {columns: columns, data: data};
};
var json = $.parseJSON(dump.d);
console.log(parse(json));
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