How to check if a string is a valid JSON string in JavaScript without using Try/Catch

Question

Something like:

var jsonString = \'{ \"Id\": 1, \"Name\": \"Coke\" }\';

//should be true
IsJsonString(jsonString);

//should be false
IsJsonString(\"foo\");         


        

Answer 1

This answer to reduce the cost of trycatch statement.

I used JQuery to parse JSON strings and I used trycatch statement to handle exceptions, but throwing exceptions for un-parsable strings slowed down my code, so I used simple Regex to check the string if it is a possible JSON string or not without going feather by checking it's syntax, then I used the regular way by parsing the string using JQuery :

if (typeof jsonData == 'string') {
    if (! /^[\[|\{](\s|.*|\w)*[\]|\}]$/.test(jsonData)) {
        return jsonData;
    }
}

try {
    jsonData = $.parseJSON(jsonData);
} catch (e) {

}

I wrapped the previous code in a recursive function to parse nested JSON responses.

Answer 2

Very Simple one-liner code ( But Hacky approach )

if (expected_json.id === undefined){
   // not a json
}
else{
   // json
}

NOTE: This only works if you are expecting something is JSON string like id. I am using it for an API and expecting the result either in JSON or some error string.

Answer 3

I thought I'd add my approach, in the context of a practical example. I use a similar check when dealing with values going in and coming out of Memjs, so even though the value saved may be string, array or object, Memjs expects a string. The function first checks if a key/value pair already exists, if it does then a precheck is done to determine if value needs to be parsed before being returned:

  function checkMem(memStr) {
    let first = memStr.slice(0, 1)
    if (first === '[' || first === '{') return JSON.parse(memStr)
    else return memStr
  }

Otherwise, the callback function is invoked to create the value, then a check is done on the result to see if the value needs to be stringified before going into Memjs, then the result from the callback is returned.

  async function getVal() {
    let result = await o.cb(o.params)
    setMem(result)
    return result

    function setMem(result) {
      if (typeof result !== 'string') {
        let value = JSON.stringify(result)
        setValue(key, value)
      }
      else setValue(key, result)
    }
  }

The complete code is below. Of course this approach assumes that the arrays/objects going in and coming out are properly formatted (i.e. something like "{ key: 'testkey']" would never happen, because all the proper validations are done before the key/value pairs ever reach this function). And also that you are only inputting strings into memjs and not integers or other non object/arrays-types.

async function getMem(o) {
  let resp
  let key = JSON.stringify(o.key)
  let memStr = await getValue(key)
  if (!memStr) resp = await getVal()
  else resp = checkMem(memStr)
  return resp

  function checkMem(memStr) {
    let first = memStr.slice(0, 1)
    if (first === '[' || first === '{') return JSON.parse(memStr)
    else return memStr
  }

  async function getVal() {
    let result = await o.cb(o.params)
    setMem(result)
    return result

    function setMem(result) {
      if (typeof result !== 'string') {
        let value = JSON.stringify(result)
        setValue(key, value)
      }
      else setValue(key, result)
    }
  }
}

Answer 4

var jsonstring='[{"ConnectionString":"aaaaaa","Server":"ssssss"}]';

if(((x)=>{try{JSON.parse(x);return true;}catch(e){return false}})(jsonstring)){

document.write("valide json")

}else{
document.write("invalide json")
}

Answer 5

A comment first. The question was about not using try/catch.
If you do not mind to use it, read the answer below. Here we just check a JSON string using a regexp, and it will work in most cases, not all cases.

Have a look around the line 450 in https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js/blob/master/json2.js

There is a regexp that check for a valid JSON, something like:

if (/^[\],:{}\s]*$/.test(text.replace(/\\["\\\/bfnrtu]/g, '@').
replace(/"[^"\\\n\r]*"|true|false|null|-?\d+(?:\.\d*)?(?:[eE][+\-]?\d+)?/g, ']').
replace(/(?:^|:|,)(?:\s*\[)+/g, ''))) {

  //the json is ok

}else{

  //the json is not ok

}

EDIT: The new version of json2.js makes a more advanced parsing than above, but still based on a regexp replace ( from the comment of @Mrchief )

Answer 6

Maybe it will useful:

    function parseJson(code)
{
    try {
        return JSON.parse(code);
    } catch (e) {
        return code;
    }
}
function parseJsonJQ(code)
{
    try {
        return $.parseJSON(code);
    } catch (e) {
        return code;
    }
}

var str =  "{\"a\":1,\"b\":2,\"c\":3,\"d\":4,\"e\":5}";
alert(typeof parseJson(str));
alert(typeof parseJsonJQ(str));
var str_b  = "c";
alert(typeof parseJson(str_b));
alert(typeof parseJsonJQ(str_b));

output:

IE7: string,object,string,string

CHROME: object,object,string,string