JSON Library 1.0

JSON Library 1.0

Overview

This is a quick JSON parser I hacked together in C. I never wound up needing it. It has three parts:

a scanner, which you shouldn't need to modify or use directly,
a parser, which you can use to turn JSON text into an internal data type, and
a formatter, which you can use to turn the JSON internal data type back into JSON text. The formatter can output to one of three formats:
- no whitespace,
- single spaces only, or
- full indent with newlines.
In the third form, you can control the indent and newline strings.

Highlights of JSON Library:

Written in C so it's lightning-fast.
Should be portable.
Defines a convenient but low-impact data type for storing the JSON values; if you don't like them, it should be easy to convert to or completely substitute your own.
Has a horrible name, which I intended to change if I ever released it, but then someone asked me for it and I threw this release together. I reserve the right to change the name later.
Was fun to write.

The JSON Library web page is here:

http://www.midwinter.com/~larry/programming/json/

And you can download a zip file containing the source code here:

http://www.midwinter.com/~larry/programming/json/json.zip

Changes / Extensions to JSON Syntax

I slightly extended the JSON syntax. Here are the differences:

Scanner:

# and // are line comments.
/* .. */ is a block comment.
I added a syntax for binary data:
```
"x" : json.bx("414243"),
```
The name bx is meant to connote "binary in hex". it's also supposed to be short. (It is far more successful at the latter than the former.) The string is interpreted as hexadecimal; the above example would turn into the ASCII string "ABC".
The zip file contains a Javascript implementation of json.bx(); other implementations are up to you.

Parser:

Explicitly allows trailing comma at the end of an "object". Example:
```
{ "a" : "x", "b" : "y", "c" : "z", }
                                 ^ allowed!
```
I'm not sure whether or not this is permissable for a strict JSON parser.

Licensing

Here's the license:

/*
** [BEGIN NOTICE]
**
** JSON Library Copyright (C) 2006-2007 Larry Hastings
**
** This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty.
** In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from
** the use of this software.
**
** Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
** including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute
** it freely, subject to the following restrictions:
**
** 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
**    claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
**    in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
**    appreciated but is not required.
** 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
**    misrepresented as being the original software.
** 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
**
** My JSON library's homepage is here:
**		http://www.midwinter.com/~larry/programming/json/
**
** [END NOTICE]
*/

In non-legalese, my goal was to allow you to do anything you like with the software, except claim that you wrote the original version. If my license prevents you from doing something you'd like to do, contact me (my email address is in the source) and we can discuss it.

Version History

1.0

Monday, November 12^th, 2007

Initial public release.

Happy JSONing!

larry