Perl

Understanding JSON Array vs JSON Object

See more JSON Examples

This example explains the difference between a JSON Array and a JSON Object. A JSON Array begins with "[" and ends with "]", whereas a JSON Object begins with "{" and ends with "}".

Elements contained in a JSON array are accessed by index, whereas elements in a JSON object are typically accessed by name (but can also be accessed by index).

Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# A JSON array should be loaded into a Chilkat JSON array,
# whereas a JSON object should be loaded into a Chilkat JSON object.

# A JSON array may contain objects, and a JSON object may contains arrays, but
# it is the top-level (outermost) element that defines whether the JSON
# document is an array or an object.
# An array begins and ends with "[" ... "]"
# An object begins and ends with "{" ... "}"

# For example, an array containing 2 objects:
my $strJsonArray = '[ { "name": "Bill" }, { "name": "Ted" } ]';

# Load it into a JSON array.
my $jsonA = Chilkat2::JsonArray->new;
my $success = $jsonA->Load($strJsonArray);
print 'number of array elements: ', $jsonA->Size, "\n";

# This is an object containing an array:
my $strJsonObj = '{ "characters": [ "Bill", "Ted" ] }';

# Load it into a JSON object.
my $jsonO = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;
$success = $jsonO->Load($strJsonObj);
print 'number of object members: ', $jsonO->Size, "\n";