RFC 8259: The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format | RFC Editor

Skip to content Primary navigationThe RFC SeriesFor AuthorsAbout UsHomeRFC 8259 View as: Plain Text, Compact HTML Info RFC 8259: STD 90: The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange FormatJSONDecember 2017. T. Bray, Ed.Internet StandardSubscribe14 subscribed Add to Set Added to 11 Sets Read aloud Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) T. Bray, Ed. Request for Comments: 8259 Textuality Obsoletes: 7159 December 2017 Category: Standards Track ISSN: 2070-1721 The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format Abstract JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight, text-based, language-independent data interchange format. It was derived from the ECMAScript Programming Language Standard. JSON defines a small set of formatting rules for the portable representation of structured data. This document removes inconsistencies with other specifications of JSON, repairs specification errors, and offers experience-based interoperability guidance. Status of This Memo This is an Internet Standards Track document. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8259. Bray Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 8259 JSON December 2017 Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process. Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English. Bray Standards Track [Page 2] RFC 8259 JSON December 2017 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.2. Specifications of JSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3. Introduction to This Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. JSON Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5. Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6. Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7. Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8. String and Character Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 8.1. Character Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 8.2. Unicode Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 8.3. String Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9. Parsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 10. Generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 11. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 12. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 13. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 14. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 14.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 14.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Appendix A. Changes from RFC 7159 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1. Introduction JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a text format for the serialization of structured data. It is derived from the object literals of JavaScript, as defined in the ECMAScript Programming Language Standard, Third Edition [ECMA-262]. JSON can represent four primitive types (strings, numbers, booleans, and null) and two structured types (objects and arrays). A string is a sequence of zero or more Unicode characters [UNICODE]. Note that this citation references the latest version of Unicode rather than a specific release. It is not expected that future changes in the Unicode specification will impact the syntax of JSON. An object is an unordered collection of zero or more name/value pairs, where a name is a string and a value is a string, number, boolean, null, object, or array. An array is an ordered sequence of zero or more values. Bray Standards Track [Page 3] RFC 8259 JSON December 2017 The terms "object" and "array" come from the conventions of JavaScript. JSON's design goals were for it to be minimal, portable, textual, and a subset of JavaScript. 1.1. Conventions Used in This Document The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119