encoding json in jQuery call

Question

I have a json like this :

{
"One\-test": {
            "name" : "One\-test",
            "link" : "xxx"              
        },
"Two\-test": {
            "name" : "Two\-test",
            "link" : "yyy"              
        }
}

and in my javascript file I use a jQuery call

var myJson;
jQuery.getJSON('path/myJson.json', function (data) {
     myJson = data;
    });

Unfortunately the call doesn't succeed, in the sense that myJson = data is not executed (I tried to put a console message just before the statement but it is not executed) and the variable myJson is still undefined (I waited for the end of the call with a $.when statement and I printed out myJson). Most likely the issue could be the format of names One\-test and Two\-test (chars '\' and '-' ), because the path is correct (I'm pretty sure). I cannot change those names, then I have to think about something else. Any idea? I tried with an ajax call like this :

function getJson(myJson){
  $.ajax({
        type: "GET",
        url: "path/myJson.json",
        data: {},
        contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
        dataType: "json",
        success:
          function(data) {
                 myJson = data;                
                     }
             });
         }

but result is still the same.

EDIT

If I try to execute the same code with :

  {
    "Onetest": {
                "name" : "One\-test",
                "link" : "xxx"              
            },
    "Twotest": {
                "name" : "Two\-test",
                "link" : "yyy"              
            }
    }

it succeed. This is another proof of "bad format"

Where did you define myJson var? You can declare it like this inside your function: var myJson = data; — bcesars
– bcesars, Commented Mar 16, 2015 at 12:32
Try doing var myJson = JSON.parse(data); Maybe it is returning a string? — shash7
– shash7, Commented Mar 16, 2015 at 12:35
what is path? where does it point to? external domain? same domain, different folder? is it http or file protocol that you are trying to access? — balexandre
– balexandre, Commented Mar 16, 2015 at 12:47
@FabrizioMorello: "balexandre what is the difference?" It could make a big difference, but your edit suggests that it doesn't in your particular case. Basically, doing XHR on file:// URLs doesn't work in some browsers. — T.J. Crowder
– T.J. Crowder, Commented Mar 16, 2015 at 12:56

Community · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-07 10:53:52Z

If I try to execute the same code with :

...

it succeed. This is another proof of "bad format"

Okay, that tells us that the JSON parser being used is interpreting those "One\-test" strings as invalid. You could read http://json.org that way (and it appears that the http://jsonlint.com folks do, as it also rejects those strings), although the RFC says

Any character may be escaped.

...which argues that while pointless, the \ before the - shouldn't be an error. But perhaps the RFC means any character can be escaped as a Unicode escape or similar.

The best thing would be what you said you can't do: Fix the JSON, removing the at-best-unnecessary-at-worst-problematic \ before -.

The next best thing would be to do some pre-processing. You could do straight string replacement by telling jQuery not to try to parse the JSON:

$.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    url: "path/myJson.json",
    data: {},
    dataType: "text",        // <=== Don't parse it
    success: function(data) {
        // ...
    }
});

then in success doing:

myJson = JSON.parse(data.replace(/\\-/g, "-"));

...though of course that's quite a naive replacement.

Here's a demo of that second bit:

var data =
  '{' +
  '"One\-test": {' +
  '            "name" : "One\-test",' +
  '            "link" : "xxx"          ' +    
  '        },' +
  '"Two\-test": {' +
  '            "name" : "Two\-test",' +
  '            "link" : "yyy"          ' +    
  '        }' +
  '}';
var myJson = JSON.parse(data.replace(/\\-/g, "-"));
snippet.log(myJson["One-test"].name); // "One-test"

<!-- Script provides the `snippet` object, see http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/242144/134069 -->
<script src="http://tjcrowder.github.io/simple-snippets-console/snippet.js"></script>

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