Pro Node.js for Developers

APPENDIX A

JavaScript Object Notation

JavaScript Object Notation, or JSON, is a plain-text, data-interchange format based on a subset of the third edition of the ECMA-262 standard. JSON is used as a mechanism for serializing data structures into strings. These strings are often sent across networks, written to output files, or used for debugging. JSON is often touted as a “fat-free alternative to XML” because it provides the same functionality as XML, but typically requires fewer characters to do so. JSON is also much easier to parse compared to XML. Many developers have forgone XML in favor of JSON due to its simplicity and low overhead.

Syntactically, ...