Why cannot I parse this json string in javascript?

Question

I need to parse a long string into a json-object via below code:

<script type="text/javascript">
function getTestData()
{
    //I have validate this json string using several tools, it's a valid json string.
    var jsonStr = '{"has_more":true,"next_offset":3,"results":[{"test_id":"3EA70EB9-12C3-466E-5E18-95057A630980","printid":null,"url":"http:\/\/muteor.testdomain.com\/art\/Smile-450664562","title":"Challenge 578","category":"Scraps","category_path":"scraps","is_favourited":false,"is_deleted":false,"author":{"userid":"98B7A0CE-006D-281A-CBB5-B08989184B19","username":"muteor","usericon":"http:\/\/a.testdomain.net\/avatars\/m\/u\/muteor.png?2","type":"admin"},"stats":{"comments":0,"favourites":0},"published_time":1398687231,"allows_comments":true,"excerpt":"<p>From the mists of chaos comes the legend of the frog wizard.<\/p><p>Today,\n            the DeviantArt community explores the mystery of the frog wizard. What does the frog wizard look like? <strong>Show us!<\/strong><\/p>","is_mature":true,"is_downloadable":true,"content":{"src":"http:\/\/fc09.testdomain.net\/fs70\/f\/2014\/118\/8\/2\/smile_by_muteor-d7gbb02.jpg","height":768,"width":1024,"transparency":false,"filesize":82184},"thumbs":[{"src":"http:\/\/th09.testdomain.net\/fs70\/150\/f\/2014\/118\/8\/2\/smile_by_muteor-d7gbb02.jpg","height":113,"width":150,"transparency":false},{"src":"http:\/\/th01.testdomain.net\/fs70\/200H\/f\/2014\/118\/8\/2\/smile_by_muteor-d7gbb02.jpg","height":200,"width":267,"transparency":false},{"src":"http:\/\/th06.testdomain.net\/fs70\/300W\/f\/2014\/118\/8\/2\/smile_by_muteor-d7gbb02.jpg","height":225,"width":300,"transparency":false}]},{"test_id":"3EA70EB9-12C3-466E-5E18-95057A630980","printid":null,"url":"http:\/\/muteor.testdomain.com\/art\/Test2-450661202","title":"Challenge 574","category":"Scraps","category_path":"scraps","is_favourited":false,"is_deleted":false,"author":{"userid":"98B7A0CE-006D-281A-CBB5-B08989184B19","username":"muteor","usericon":"http:\/\/a.testdomain.net\/avatars\/m\/u\/muteor.png?2","type":"admin"},"stats":{"comments":0,"favourites":0},"published_time":1398685034,"allows_comments":true,"excerpt":"<p>From the mists of chaos comes the legend of the frog wizard.<\/p><p>Today,\n            the DeviantArt community explores the mystery of the frog wizard. What does the frog wizard look like? <strong>Show us!<\/strong><\/p>","is_mature":false,"is_downloadable":true,"content":{"src":"http:\/\/fc02.testdomain.net\/fs71\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/4\/test2_by_muteor-d7gb8eq.jpg","height":768,"width":1024,"transparency":false,"filesize":68953},"thumbs":[{"src":"http:\/\/th03.testdomain.net\/fs71\/150\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/4\/test2_by_muteor-d7gb8eq.jpg","height":113,"width":150,"transparency":false},{"src":"http:\/\/th03.testdomain.net\/fs71\/200H\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/4\/test2_by_muteor-d7gb8eq.jpg","height":200,"width":267,"transparency":false},{"src":"http:\/\/th00.testdomain.net\/fs71\/300W\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/4\/test2_by_muteor-d7gb8eq.jpg","height":225,"width":300,"transparency":false}]},{"test_id":"346E0322-0ED1-6A89-DCFF-C128FCB8D394","printid":null,"url":"http:\/\/muteor.testdomain.com\/art\/Test-450664268","title":"Challenge 424","category":"Scraps","category_path":"scraps","is_favourited":false,"is_deleted":false,"author":{"userid":"98B7A0CE-006D-281A-CBB5-B08989184B19","username":"muteor","usericon":"http:\/\/a.testdomain.net\/avatars\/m\/u\/muteor.png?2","type":"admin"},"stats":{"comments":0,"favourites":0},"published_time":1398687047,"allows_comments":true,"excerpt":"<p>From the mists of chaos comes the legend of the frog wizard.<\/p><p>Today,\n            the DeviantArt community explores the mystery of the frog wizard. What does the frog wizard look like? <strong>Show us!<\/strong><\/p>","is_mature":false,"is_downloadable":true,"content":{"src":"http:\/\/fc03.testdomain.net\/fs70\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/b\/test_by_muteor-d7gbarw.jpg","height":768,"width":1024,"transparency":false,"filesize":164010},"thumbs":[{"src":"http:\/\/th03.testdomain.net\/fs70\/150\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/b\/test_by_muteor-d7gbarw.jpg","height":113,"width":150,"transparency":false},{"src":"http:\/\/th03.testdomain.net\/fs70\/200H\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/b\/test_by_muteor-d7gbarw.jpg","height":200,"width":267,"transparency":false},{"src":"http:\/\/th03.testdomain.net\/fs70\/300W\/f\/2014\/118\/a\/b\/test_by_muteor-d7gbarw.jpg","height":225,"width":300,"transparency":false}]}]}';
    var data = null;
    try
    {
        data = JSON.parse(jsonStr);
    }
    catch (e)
    {
    }
    return data;
}

However, after call the JSON.parse() function, I got an exception:

SyntaxError: Unexpected token
message: "Unexpected token ↵"
stack: (...)
get stack: function () { [native code] }
set stack: function () { [native code] }
__proto__: Error

Who can help me to figure out how to parse this in javascript? Thank you all!

It works for me after removing the newline characters you have (\n). — Marty
– Marty, Commented Jan 22, 2015 at 5:39
Thank you Marty! Yes, you are correct, is there any way to keep \n where parsing? — Tom Dong
– Tom Dong, Commented Jan 22, 2015 at 5:42
Why do you have JSON inside a string literal in the first place? That's rather unusual. If you get the JSON from a request or it is generated, then the problem you describe does not exist. Otherwise use an object literal to create the object. — Felix Kling
– Felix Kling, Commented Jan 22, 2015 at 5:43

user229044 · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-22 05:41:25Z

4

You need to escape your newlines. You've embedded literal new-line characters into your string.

Each of your \n escape sequences needs to be \\n.

Note that your string will pass validation when copy-pasted into a validator because it's the JavaScript parser that turns \n into a literal newline character. This problem only manifests itself when your particular JSON string is first evaluated as a JavaScript string literal, and then parsed as JSON.

answered Jan 22, 2015 at 5:41

user229044♦

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2 Comments

Afsar Over a year ago

Do you have blog.. please

user229044 Over a year ago

@zan No, I don't, sorry.

Paritosh · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-22 06:03:58Z

0

JSON does not allow "real" newlines in its data; it can only have escaped newlines. So, You can do this by including an extra slash in front of the newline ("one\\ntwo").

answered Jan 22, 2015 at 6:03

Paritosh

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3 Comments

Felix Kling Over a year ago

"JSON does not allow "real" newlines in its data;" At least not in inside strings, yes. However, escaping \n in JSON is not necessary. ["foo\nbar"] is valid JSON.

Paritosh Over a year ago

but the comment#2 on V8 issue code.google.com/p/v8/issues/detail?id=616 clearly says that : "If you meant to parse it as a string containing the \n newline escape, the backslash needs to be escaped in the string literal." and comment#6 and 7 also supports this.

Felix Kling Over a year ago

That talks about JSON in a JavaScript string literal. The problem is with the string literals in that case. That doesn't apply to JSON itself.

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