What is the difference between a JS object literal and a JSON string?

Question

I have confusion about what exactly people mean by Object Literals, JSON, JavaScript Objects, to me they seem similar:

{foo: \'bar\', bar : \'baz\'}

Answer 1

JSON originates from the object literal notation of JavaScript and itself is a string. That explains the similarity, when just looking at it. Today JSON is used as a general means of serializing all kinds of data, before submitting it over some network or storing it.

// this is a JSON variable
var json = '{"foo": "bar", "bar" : "baz"}';

// obj is a JavaScript obj, defined by the object literal on the right hand side
var obj = {foo: 'bar', bar : 'baz'};

• JSON - serialized object; similar syntax as defining an object in JS
• Object literal - shorthand syntax to define an object in JS
• Object - the result of a definition by, e.g., an object literal

In JS you can convert a JSON string into an object by using

var obj = JSON.parse( json );

and get the JSON representation of an object (excluding attached functions) by

var json = JSON.stringify( obj );