json-lua

A JSON encoder/decoder for Lua.

Tested on Lua 5.1 (inside of LOVE2D), no guarantees for other versions.

Usage

Basic Example

json = require 'json'

t = {
    "a": 5,
    "b": lol,
    "c": [1, 2, 3],
    "d": {
        "e": true,
        "f": false
    }
}

-- Use encode to generate a json string from a Lua table.
str = json.encode(t)

-- Use decode to generate a Lua table from a JSON string.
im_back = json.decode(str)

print("whoa")
for k, v in pairs(im_back) do
    print(k.." "..tostring(v))
end

-- if decode fails it will return nil and an error message
result, error = json.decode("[}"); -- invalid json

if error ~= nil then
    print(error) -- prints an invalid json object error
end

Encode

Encodes a Lua table into a JSON string. Can optionally minify the output with a second 'minify' boolean parameter. Non-minified output inserts 4 spaces per tab. This is currently not configurable.

function encode(table, minify)

Decode

Creates a Lua table from a JSON string. Can also be called as parse. Attempts to find errors in JSON and provide some sort of meaningful output but by no means is every possible JSON error tested and some invalid JSON might be processed just fine.

function decode(jsonstr)

-- Equivalent to decode
function parse(jsonstr)

Future features

• Optimizations, no benchmarking has been done.
• Configurable styled output.
• More robust error reporting.
• Optionally allow trailing commas.
• Optionally allow comments.

Known Issues

• Not really tested fully, might be some strange edge cases.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 Ted Dobyns

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.