JSON
JSON all things!
BoxLang supports native JSON support via several key functions and some member functions.
Serialize
BoxLang gives us the jsonSerialize()
function to convert any piece of data to its JSON representation (https://cfdocs.org/serializejson)
Pass in any complex or simple variable to the var
argument and JSON will be produced:
You can even use the toJSON()
member function:
Key Casing
By default BoxLang will convert the keys in a struct to uppercase in the result JSON document:
If you want to preserve the key casing then wrap them in double/single quotes and define the case:
Possible Casting Issues
BoxLang may incorrectly serialize some strings if they can be automatically converted into other types, like numbers or booleans. One workaround is to use a class with cfproperty to specify types. Another workaround is to prepend Chr(2)
to the value and it will be forced to a string, however, that is an unofficial/undocumented workaround. A more formal workaround is to call setMetadata()
as a member function on a struct
to force a type:
Deserialize
The inverse of serialization is deserialization (https://cfdocs.org/deserializejson). BoxLang gives you the jsonDeserialize()
function that will take a JSON document and produce native BoxLang data structures for you.
Just pass a JSON document, and off we go with native structs/arrays/dates/strings and booleans.
This function can also be used as a member function in any string literal:
Is this JSON?
BoxLang has a function to test if the incoming string is valid JSON (https://cfdocs.org/isjson) or not: isJSON()
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