Old question but some possibly new answers like JSON Spec and JSON Reference https://json-spec.readthedocs.io/reference.html

[{
  "name": "John",
 },
 {
  "name" : "Jack",
  "parent": {"$ref": "#/0"}
 },
 ...
]

or possibly better with JSON Path syntax http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/

[{
  "name": "John",
 },
 {
  "name" : "Jack",
  "parent": {".[?(@.name=='John')]"}
 }, 
...
]

For inspiration, you may want to look into the way some of the json based api's (ex: json api, HAL) handle embedding.

One simple answer is to track your data in a key value store. For example

{ "/players/0" : {...}
, "/players/1" : {...}
, "/players/2" : {...}
, "/players/3" : {...}
, "/teams/0" : {...}
, "/teams/1" : {...}
}

And then you describe the players assigned to your team using local references

, "/teams/0" :
    { refs : 
        [ "/players/0"
        , "/players/1"
        ]
    }

As it happens, this scheme covers the case where you have identifiers too. Or where you only have some identifiers

, "/teams/0" :
    { refs : 
        [ "/players/0"
        , "/players/2ad8cabe-2f93-11e6-ac61-9e71128cae77"
        ]
    }

There are fancier versions of this idea (see the links).

That said, I've been down this road myself, and I really tied myself in knots until I concluded: if what you really have is a list of names, rather than a list of players, admit that to yourself, code it that way, and deal with it. It's the more honest way of representing what's going on in the domain at that point in time.

In which case, the payload of your message should look very close to:

{ "Team 1" : 
  [ "Player 1"
  , "Player 2"
  ]
, "Team 2" :
  [ "Player 3"
  , "Player 4"
  ]
}

If that makes you twitchy, remember: this isn't a description of your domain objects; it's a message. The changes it makes to your domain are a side effect. Jim Webber covers this in the introduction to this talk.

I was searching on this same feature recently. There does not seem to be a standard or ubiquitous implementation for referencing in JSON. I found a couple of resources that I can share:

• The Future for JSON Referencing

http://groups.google.com/group/json-schema/browse_thread/thread/95fb4006f1f92a40 - This is just a discussion on id-based referencing.

• JSON Referencing in Dojo

http://www.sitepen.com/blog/2008/06/17/json-referencing-in-dojo/ - An implementation in Dojox (extensions for the Dojo framework) - discusses id-based and path based referencing.

• JSONPath - XPath for JSON

http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/ - This seems to be an attempt at establishing a standard for path based JSON referencing - maybe a small subset of XPath (?). There seems to be an implementation here but I kept getting errors on the download section - you might have better luck. But again this is no where close to a standard yet.

No, JSON is essentially represented as a string. Nodes JSON.stringify will attempt to convert 100 + this.armour to a primitive value (in this case NaN), but other implementations of stringifywould perhaps render it as a single string that when parsed would result in a string "100 + this.armour".

If I were you, I would store the stringified object only with values that can be represented as primitive values. Then, when you parse the JSON string into a JS object, pass it into a function that will compute the additional properties that rely on other properties.

With the right syntax, which I believe you want this:

var JSON = {
    "employees": [
    {
        "name": "david",
        "car": "audi"
    },
    {
        "name": "jimmy",
        "car": "VW"
    }],

    "customers": [
    {
        "name": "philip",
        "purchase": "cabbage"
    },
    {
        "name": "Helen",
        "purchase": "HOW DO I REFERENCE THIS?"
    }]
}

You can get purchase by using this:

for (var i in JSON.customers)
{
    var customer = JSON.customers[i];

    var value = customer.purchase; // cabbage, HOW DO I...
}