1 Scope

JSON is a lightweight, text-based, language-independent syntax for defining data interchange formats. It was derived from the ECMAScript programming language, but is programming language independent. JSON defines a small set of structuring rules for the portable representation of structured data.

The goal of this specification is only to define the syntax of valid JSON texts. Its intent is not to provide any semantics or interpretation of text conforming to that syntax. It also intentionally does not define how a valid JSON text might be internalized into the data structures of a programming language. There are many possible semantics that could be applied to the JSON syntax and many ways that a JSON text can be processed or mapped by a programming language. Meaningful interchange of information using JSON requires agreement among the involved parties on the specific semantics to be applied. Defining specific semantic interpretations of JSON is potentially a topic for other specifications. Similarly, language mappings of JSON can also be independently specified. For example, ECMA-262 defines mappings between valid JSON texts and ECMAScript's runtime data structures.

2 Conformance

A conforming JSON text is a sequence of Unicode code points that strictly conforms to the JSON grammar defined by this specification.

A conforming processor of JSON texts should not accept any inputs that are not conforming JSON texts. A conforming processor may impose semantic restrictions that limit the set of conforming JSON texts that it will process.

3 Normative References

The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.

ISO/IEC 10646, Information Technology - Universal Coded Character Set (UCS)

The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard
https://www.unicode.org/versions/latest

Bray, T., Ed. "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format", RFC 8259.
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8259

This specification and RFC 8259 both provide specifications of the JSON grammar but do so using different formalisms. The intent is that both specifications define the same syntactic language. If a difference is found between them, Ecma International and the IETF will work together to update both documents. If an error is found with either document, the other should be examined to see if it has a similar error, and fixed if possible. If either document is changed in the future, Ecma International and the IETF will work together to ensure that the two documents stay aligned through the change. RFC 8259 also defines various semantic restrictions on the use of the JSON syntax. Those restrictions are not normative for this specification.

4 JSON Text

A JSON text is a sequence of tokens formed from Unicode code points that conforms to the JSON value grammar. The set of tokens includes six structural tokens, strings, numbers, and three literal name tokens.

The six structural tokens:

These are the three literal name tokens:

Insignificant whitespace is allowed before or after any token. Whitespace is any sequence of one or more of the following code points: character tabulation (U+0009), line feed (U+000A), carriage return (U+000D), and space (U+0020). Whitespace is not allowed within any token, except that space is allowed in strings.

5 JSON Values

A JSON value can be an object, array, number, string, true, false, or null.

6 Objects

An object structure is represented as a pair of curly bracket tokens surrounding zero or more name/value pairs. A name is a string. A single colon token follows each name, separating the name from the value. A single comma token separates a value from a following name. The JSON syntax does not impose any restrictions on the strings used as names, does not require that name strings be unique, and does not assign any significance to the ordering of name/value pairs. These are all semantic considerations that may be defined by JSON processors or in specifications defining specific uses of JSON for data interchange.

7 Arrays

An array structure is a pair of square bracket tokens surrounding zero or more values. The values are separated by commas. The JSON syntax does not define any specific meaning to the ordering of the values. However, the JSON array structure is often used in situations where there is some semantics to the ordering.

8 Numbers

A number is a sequence of decimal digits with no superfluous leading zero. It may have a preceding minus sign (U+002D). It may have a fractional part prefixed by a decimal point (U+002E). It may have an exponent, prefixed by e (U+0065) or E (U+0045) and optionally + (U+002B) or - (U+002D). The digits are the code points U+0030 through U+0039.

Numeric values that cannot be represented as sequences of digits (such as Infinity and NaN) are not permitted.

9 Strings

A string is a sequence of Unicode code points wrapped with quotation marks (U+0022). All code points may be placed within the quotation marks except for the code points that must be escaped: quotation mark (U+0022), reverse solidus (U+005C), and the control characters U+0000 to U+001F. There are two-character escape sequence representations of some characters.

So, for example, a string containing only a single reverse solidus character may be represented as "\\".

Any code point may be represented as a hexadecimal escape sequence. The meaning of such a hexadecimal number is determined by ISO/IEC 10646. If the code point is in the Basic Multilingual Plane (U+0000 through U+FFFF), then it may be represented as a six-character sequence: a reverse solidus, followed by the lowercase letter u, followed by four hexadecimal digits that encode the code point. Hexadecimal digits can be digits (U+0030 through U+0039) or the hexadecimal letters A through F in uppercase (U+0041 through U+0046) or lowercase (U+0061 through U+0066). So, for example, a string containing only a single reverse solidus character may be represented as "\u005C" .

The following four cases all produce the same result:

• "\u002F"
• "\u002f"
• "\/"
• "/"

To escape a code point that is not in the Basic Multilingual Plane, the character may be represented as a twelve-character sequence, encoding the UTF-16 surrogate pair corresponding to the code point. So for example, a string containing only the G clef character (U+1D11E) may be represented as "\uD834\uDD1E". However, whether a processor of JSON texts interprets such a surrogate pair as a single code point or as an explicit surrogate pair is a semantic decision that is determined by the specific processor.