[Web-SIG] Time a for JSON parser in the standard library?

[Bob Ippolito]

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 5:48 PM, Alan Kennedy <pywebsig at xhaus.com> wrote:
> [Alan]
>  >> [hand written JSON containing a] hard-to-spot dangling comma, from all the
>
> >>  copying and pasting. That broke his javascript library; he solved the
>  >>  problem by passing it through a PHP JSON codec on his local Apache. It
>  >>  worked, i.e. his problem disappeared, but he didn't know why (the PHP
>  >>  lib had eliminated the dangling comma). Which all goes to confirm,
>  >>  IMHO, that you should be liberal in what you consume and strict in
>  >>  what you produce.
>
>  [John]
>
> >  Sounds like a case *for* strict parsing, in my opinion. PHP's loose
>  >  parsing made it difficult to figure out why the JSON was invalid. If
>  >  trailing comma handling is to try to work around copy-paste errors, -1
>  >  from me.
>
>  No, the PHP lib did exactly what it should, IMHO. The PHP lib was
>  liberal in what it consumed (a dangling comma), and strict in what it
>  produced (no dangling comma).
>
>  It accepted my broken document with a dangling-comma, and emitted a
>  strictly conformant document with the offending comma removed, which
>  enabled my co-worker to proceed with his job.
>
>  +1 from me.
>
>  Other opinions?

simplejson would give you an error and tell you exactly where the
problem was, but there isn't currently a non-strict mode and honestly
nobody has asked for it.

-bob