JS: eval json

Post date: Mar 18, 2011 3:59:53 PM

var jsonEmployee = "{ name: 'Ray', age: 31 }";

var employee = eval(jsonEmployee);

script error: sun.org.mozilla.javascript.internal.EcmaError: SyntaxError: missing ; before statement (<STDIN>#1(eval)#1) in <STDIN>#1(eval) at line number 1

The problem that "{ ... }" is a block of code. So if we wants to have a json we need to add [], i.e. "[{ ... }]" or use expressions "([ ... ])"

Note that valid JSON need quoted items names.

{ "name": "Ray", "age": 31 }

from http://rayfd.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/why-wont-eval-eval-my-json-or-json-object-object-literal/