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hey guys, i have read This post, so what i got is JSON is the easiest way to translate a JavaScript object into a PHP/C# associative array or object (and vice-versa).

Now my question is what is goin' on in below code,i.e without JSON/XML i'm still can access my C# object in Javascript, may be i'm wrong, if so Please correct me:

C#

 Foreach(DataRow dr in dvItems.Table.Rows) //dvItems is a DataView { strItems &= "'" & dr("ItemTitle") & "'," //strItems is a String } strItems = strItems.Trim(",")

Javascript : here i'm using Autocomplete.js using JQuery

 function InitAutocomplete() { data = [<%=strItems %>].sort(); AutoComplete_Create('<%=txtItem.ClientId %>', data); }

See i'm using strItems in javascript with servertag, so where exactly the JSON is used ? is .net doin' something internally ? i'm totally confused how JSON/XML is used to data passing ?

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2 Answers 2

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While you can pass data like this without using JSON, it doesn't ensure that all of the data is safe to pass, e.g. embedded </script> tags. Using JSON will encode your data in a way that prevents this, and you decode it on the JavaScript side with e.g. json2.js.

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Ok So, only for safety reason, JSON is used ?
Actually, it's rarely used for that. Many people inject the data directly into the JavaScript as you've done, which has security and integrity implications.
can you please explain me how this method i.e injecting data directly into JavaScript is unsecure, i just wana know how this method can fail sometimes ?
Say one of your strings for some unknown reason contains '];</script>. This would close your script block, causing the rest to appear as part of the page. This isn't necessarily a security problem per se, but it is an integrity problem.
oh my, i hv not thought about that... thanx man, you made my day
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You're not really using JSON in anything here. You're merely generating an array of strings for javascript and use it in a vvery straightforward manner.

If you wish to transform the JSON to javascript object(s) you need to modify your program and you need a JSON parser. There are several implementations of JSON-parsers, but you mentioned jQuery so you could use: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.parseJSON/

Parsing with jQuery, however, requires your JSON to be strictly formatted (from v1.4). See http://json.org/ about the correct form. Basically in your situation you should put double quotes around your strings and put the whole array inside square brackets.

Your results should be something like this:

strItems = '[' Foreach(DataRow dr in dvItems.Table.Rows) //dvItems is a DataView { // TODO: Escape dr("ItemTitle") so it conforms to http://json.org/ => String strItems &= "\"" & dr("ItemTitle") & "\"," //strItems is a String } strItems = strItems.Trim(",") strItems &= ']' <script type="text/javascript"> var jsonArr = <%=strItems%>; var data = jQuery.parseJSON(jsonArr); AutoComplete_Create('<%=txtItem.ClientId %>', data); </script>
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No, what it should be doing is using one of the .NET libraries for JSON generation. Generating JSON (or any interchange format more sophisticated than plain text for that matter) manually is an anti-pattern.
I agree on this. Commonly used and robust libraries should always be the first thing to look for implementations on occasions like this.
what if i'm using PHP then, should i generate JSON manually or neother source is there, for .net there is a library for JSON generation and what for PHP ?
Google found php.net/manual/en/book.json.php for search "php json" (without quotes).
guys, i'm not able to do this using JSON, how can be a string will get convert to JSON string ? since here my strItems is outputing 'mouse','keyboard','Led' after serializing it is becoming "'mouse','keyboard','Led'", and autocomplete.js except data in 'mouse','keyboard','Led' format only..
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