Difference between valid names in JSON and JavaScript object literals

Question

I have a JSON-formatted document like so:

{
    "the-field": "something",
    // etc
}

When I call foo = JSON.parse() it spits out an object literal with a field foo.the-field, but when I try console.log(foo.the-field) I'm told that it's not proper formatting for a JavaScript variable. What gives?

Arun P Johny · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-17 03:15:04Z

6

You need to use the bracket notation instead of dot notation as the member operator here

foo["the-field"]

From Docs

If you are using dot notation then

property must be a valid JavaScript identifier, i.e. a sequence of alphanumerical characters, also including the underscore ("_") and dollar sign ("$"), that cannot start with a number. For example, object.$1 is valid, while object.1 is not.

edited Jun 17, 2013 at 3:15

answered Jun 17, 2013 at 3:07

Arun P Johny

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1 Comment

bfavaretto Over a year ago

Formatting tip: the backticks go inside the brackets :)

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