JSON Data Format

What is JSON?

JSON is a lightweight, text-based data interchange format that's easy for humans to read and write, and easy for machines to parse and generate. It's become the de facto standard for web APIs and data exchange.

Basic Structure

{
  "name": "John Doe",
  "age": 30,
  "isActive": true,
  "address": {
    "street": "123 Main St",
    "city": "San Francisco",
    "country": "USA"
  },
  "hobbies": ["reading", "gaming", "hiking"]
}

Key Characteristics

• Human-readable: Easy to understand and modify
• Language independent: Works with any programming language
• Self-describing: Structure is clear from the data itself
• Hierarchical: Supports nested objects and arrays
• Lightweight: Minimal syntax overhead

Data Types

JSON supports these basic data types:

• Strings: "Hello World"
• Numbers: 42, 3.14, -1
• Booleans: true, false
• Null: null
• Arrays: [1, 2, 3]
• Objects: {"key": "value"}