From Json.NET documentation: http://james.newtonking.com/projects/json/help/?topic=html/ConvertingJSONandXML.htm

You can force a node to be rendered as an Array by adding the attribute json:Array='true' to the XML node you are converting to JSON. Also, you need to declare the json prefix namespace at the XML header xmlns:json='http://james.newtonking.com/projects/json' or else you will get an XML error stating that the json prefix is not declared.

The next example is provided by the documentation:

xml = @"<person xmlns:json='http://james.newtonking.com/projects/json' id='1'>
        <name>Alan</name>
        <url>http://www.google.com</url>
        <role json:Array='true'>Admin</role>
      </person>";

Generated output:

{
  "person": {
    "@id": "1",
    "name": "Alan",
    "url": "http://www.google.com",
    "role": [
      "Admin"
    ]
  }
}

I'll elaborate a bit more on ChrisR awesome answer and bring images from his awesome reference.

A valid JSON always starts with either curly braces { or square brackets [, nothing else.

{ will start an object:

{ "key": value, "another key": value }

Hint: although javascript accepts single quotes ', JSON only takes double ones ".

[ will start an array:

[value, value]

Hint: spaces among elements are always ignored by any JSON parser.

And value is an object, array, string, number, bool or null:

So yeah, ["a", "b"] is a perfectly valid JSON, like you could try on the link Manish pointed.

Here are a few extra valid JSON examples, one per block:

{}

[0]

{"__comment": "json doesn't accept comments and you should not be commenting even in this way", "avoid!": "also, never add more than one key per line, like this"}

[{   "why":null} ]

{
  "not true": [0, false],
  "true": true,
  "not null": [0, 1, false, true, {
    "obj": null
  }, "a string"]
}

On the outermost level, a JSON object starts with a { and end with a }.

Sample data:

{
    "cars": {
        "Nissan": [
            {"model":"Sentra", "doors":4},
            {"model":"Maxima", "doors":4},
            {"model":"Skyline", "doors":2}
        ],
        "Ford": [
            {"model":"Taurus", "doors":4},
            {"model":"Escort", "doors":4}
        ]
    }
}

If the JSON is assigned to a variable called data, then accessing it would be like the following:

data.cars['Nissan'][0].model   // Sentra
data.cars['Nissan'][1].model   // Maxima
data.cars['Nissan'][2].doors   // 2

for (var make in data.cars) {
    for (var i = 0; i < data.cars[make].length; i++) {
        var model = data.cars[make][i].model;
        var doors = data.cars[make][i].doors;
        alert(make + ', ' + model + ', ' + doors);
    }
}

Another approach (using an associative array for car models rather than an indexed array):

{
    "cars": {
        "Nissan": {
            "Sentra": {"doors":4, "transmission":"automatic"},
            "Maxima": {"doors":4, "transmission":"automatic"}
        },
        "Ford": {
            "Taurus": {"doors":4, "transmission":"automatic"},
            "Escort": {"doors":4, "transmission":"automatic"}
        }
    }
}

data.cars['Nissan']['Sentra'].doors   // 4
data.cars['Nissan']['Maxima'].doors   // 4
data.cars['Nissan']['Maxima'].transmission   // automatic

for (var make in data.cars) {
    for (var model in data.cars[make]) {
        var doors = data.cars[make][model].doors;
        alert(make + ', ' + model + ', ' + doors);
    }
}

Edit:

Correction: A JSON object starts with { and ends with }, but it's also valid to have a JSON array (on the outermost level), that starts with [ and ends with ].

Also, significant syntax errors in the original JSON data have been corrected: All key names in a JSON object must be in double quotes, and all string values in a JSON object or a JSON array must be in double quotes as well.

See:

• JSON specification
• JSONLint - The JSON validator

The JSON for that array is:

["apple","orange","cat","dog"]

JSON for arrays is the same as Javascript array literals, except that JSON doesn't allow missing elements or an optional trailing comma. And the elements of the array have to be valid JSON, so you have to use double quotes around strings, you can't use single quotes like Javascript allows.

You generally shouldn't have to worry about how to format JSON yourself, most languages have library functions that do it for you. In JS you use JSON.stringify, in PHP you use json_encode().