<stefan.goessner/>1.9.07 # JSONPath - XPath for JSON
Here and there on the web we can find a discussion or solution for something like XPath for JSON. Despite the fact, that JSON structures can be processed by the C family of programming languages quite easily, there should be a benefit in having some kind of XPath4JSON.
So I was thinking about a suitable path expression syntax for addressing portions of any JSON structure. Those path expressions should
- be naturally based on C language family characteristics.
- cover only essential parts of XPath 1.0.
As a result here is JSONPath, wich is a dual thing. Primarily JSONPath is a path expression syntax, which can select parts of JSON structures in the same way as XPath expressions select nodes of XML documents. Such an expression may look like
$..book[2].title
and is quite similar to its XPath counterpart
//book[3]/title
Currently there is a small set of nine JSONPath syntax elements, which allows the construction of sophisticated path expressions.
Furthermore JSONPath is a lightweight tool implemented in Javascript and PHP for accessing JSON structures on the client and the server.
You can download
- jsonpath.js
- jsonpath.php
for free and read more about it.
Update:
Atif Aziz came up with a C# port of JSONPath in a very short time (jsonpath.cs). Thanks for that.
JSON XPath Javascript PHP C#
Labels: Javascript, JSON, PHP, XPath