Beginning JavaScript, 5th Edition

12JSON

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:                

• Discovering the limitations of using XML with JavaScript
• Recognizing the differences between JavaScript and JSON
• Serializing objects using the built-in JSON object
• Parsing JSON back into actual objects and values you can use in your pages

WROX.COM CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

You can find the wrox.com code downloads for this chapter at http://www.wiley.com/go/BeginningJavaScript5E on the Download Code tab. You can also view all of the examples and related files at http://beginningjs.com.

If you aren’t already, start thinking of a web page as a program. It does, after all, have all the trappings of a traditional program. It has a user interface, and it can process data with JavaScript. But as you well know, traditional programs can do more; they can store data as well as transmit data to other computers and systems. In the coming chapters, you learn that you can do the same things in a web page—all thanks to JavaScript.

But as you soon learn, you can’t just store objects and arrays as they are; instead, you need to serialize them. Serialization is the process of translating an object into a string representation of that object. Once an object is serialized, the string representation of that object can then be stored in a more permanent storage facility or transmitted to another computer.

Serialization translates only the structure and pertinent information of an object—that is, only the properties are present in ...