What is JSON?

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is billed as a “lightweight data-interchange format”. It is a subset of Javascript, using its ”’object literal notation”’ and as such, can simply be evaled using JavaScript’s built-in eval() method, and parsed with little effort in most other languages. As a data-interchange format, it has become increasingly popular as an alternative to XML. Its advocates generally cite its humanreadability and the ease of parsing as the main advantages. However, the key feature, I believe, is that JSON data structures translate transparently into the native data structures universal to almost all programming languages used today.