I have an array

var array_list=["apple","orange","cat","dog"];

How do i write this in json?

I saw tutorials in w3schools but it showed that json has name value/pairs,should we always write it in name/value pairs or is there a simpler format?.

I have an array

var array_list=["apple","orange","cat","dog"];

How do i write this in json?

I saw tutorials in w3schools but it showed that json has name value/pairs,should we always write it in name/value pairs or is there a simpler format?.

• javascript
• arrays
• json

• 4 Go to json and study the JSON syntax. It only takes 5-10 minutes to learn. – Hot Licks Commented Sep 15, 2014 at 16:57
• 3 Key/value pairs are for objects, not arrays. w3schools is generally a bad reference, their answers are often inplete, and sometimes wrong. – Barmar Commented Sep 15, 2014 at 16:59
• JSON.stringify(array_list) – Derek 朕會功夫 Commented Sep 15, 2014 at 17:27

4 Answers 4

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 ma. 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().

You can convert the array into json by JSON.stringify

var array_list=['apple','orange','cat','dog'];
var json_string = JSON.stringify(array_list);

And using JSON.parse you can parse the JSON

var obj = JSON.parse(json_string);

DEMO

You use name/value pairs for dictionaries. You use a sequence of values for arrays.

{ "name1": 1, "name2": "text" }
[ 1, 2, 3, "apple", "orange", 3.2 ]

An array is a perfectly legal JSON serializable object.

var array_list=["apple","orange","cat","dog"];
var json_string = JSON.stringify(array_list);