JSONhandling

JSON handling refers to processes used to work with JSON data in software: parsing, generation, validation, and transformation. JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a lightweight, text-based data interchange format used for APIs, configuration, and log files.

The core operations are parsing JSON text into in-memory data structures; serializing data structures into JSON text; and optional validation against a schema or structure. Most languages provide standard libraries for parsing and serialization, with API names such as parse, load, dumps, or encode/decode.

JSON data types are limited to objects, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans, and null. Numbers are represented as IEEE 754 double-precision values in most implementations; strings are Unicode. JSON has no explicit date, binary, or function types, so such data is typically encoded as strings or embedded as base64.

Validation mechanisms include JSON Schema, which describes allowed structures and types, constraints, and default values. Validation helps ensure data quality when consuming JSON from external sources.

For large or real-time workloads, streaming JSON parsers process input incrementally to reduce memory usage, while traditional parsers load the entire document into memory. Some formats optimize for streaming or binary JSON variants for efficiency.

Best practices and security: avoid executing JSON with code; validate input; consider canonical encoding and character escaping; be aware of precision loss for large integers and floating-point values; ensure consistent UTF-8 encoding and robust error handling.

Limitations and alternatives: JSON is human-readable and language-agnostic but lacks comments, schemas are optional, and binary data requires encoding. Alternatives include YAML, Protocol Buffers, or MessagePack for different trade-offs.