> yes I know about strings and numeric conversions. I want to
> know is there a way to force json to force values to strings.
> I have played with the parser but it is a PITA and played
> with adding " " at the query level but that is too
> cumbersome. I can't believe JSon does not have any options
> or settings that force all values to strings. Anyone played
> with this at all?
JSON is just a data format. It doesn't have "options".
JSON is defined to be a subset of the JavaScript object literal format.
Forget JSON for a moment and let's just talk about pure JavaScript code:
var address = {
"city": "Augusta",
"state": "ME",
"zip": 04330
};
alert( address.zip );
In most browsers, that will alert 2264 (the decimal value of the octal
number 04330).
If you let JavaScript see a number with a leading zero, it *will* interpret
it as octal (unless the number contains an 8 or 9 anywhere - in that case it
will be interpreted as decimal after all) - again in most browsers.
Your only solution is to keep JavaScript from seeing that 04330 as a number.
You can do that either by:
1) Quoting the number so it's a string, not a number:
var address = {
"city": "Augusta",
"state": "ME",
"zip": "04330"
};
Or 2) using a custom "sort-of-JSON" parser that doesn't use eval() and
handles numeric strings as strings:
var address = '{ "city": "Augusta", "state": "ME", "zip": 04330 }';
// Now address is simply a long string, and you can write your own
// parser for it that treats the components of the string any
// way you want.
Option 1 is probably the simpler of the two.
-Mike
