RESTful Java Web Services - Third Edition

Understanding the JSON data syntax

The JSON format is very simple by design. It is represented by the following two data structures:

• An unordered collection of the name-value pairs (representing an object):
  • Attributes of an object and their values are represented in the name-value pair format; the name and the value in a pair are separated by a colon (:). Names in an object are strings, and values may be of any of the valid JSON data types such as number, string, Boolean, array, object, or null. Each name:value pair in a JSON object is separated by a comma (,). The entire object is enclosed in curly braces ({}).
  • For instance, the JSON representation of a department object is as follows:

{"departmentId":10, "departmentName":"IT",   "manager":"John ...