Regex to validate JSON

Question

I am looking for a Regex that allows me to validate json.

I am very new to Regex\'s and i know enough that parsing with Regex is bad but can it be used to validate?

Answer 1

Here my regexp for validate string:

^\"([^\"\\]*|\\(["\\\/bfnrt]{1}|u[a-f0-9]{4}))*\"$

Was written usign original syntax diagramm.

Answer 2

I tried @mario's answer, but it didn't work for me, because I've downloaded test suite from JSON.org (archive) and there were 4 failed tests (fail1.json, fail18.json, fail25.json, fail27.json).

I've investigated the errors and found out, that fail1.json is actually correct (according to manual's note and RFC-7159 valid string is also a valid JSON). File fail18.json was not the case either, cause it contains actually correct deeply-nested JSON:

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[["Too deep"]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

So two files left: fail25.json and fail27.json:

["  tab character   in  string  "]

and

["line
break"]

Both contains invalid characters. So I've updated the pattern like this (string subpattern updated):

$pcreRegex = '/
          (?(DEFINE)
             (?<number>   -? (?= [1-9]|0(?!\d) ) \d+ (\.\d+)? ([eE] [+-]? \d+)? )
             (?<boolean>   true | false | null )
             (?<string>    " ([^"\n\r\t\\\\]* | \\\\ ["\\\\bfnrt\/] | \\\\ u [0-9a-f]{4} )* " )
             (?<array>     \[  (?:  (?&json)  (?: , (?&json)  )*  )?  \s* \] )
             (?<pair>      \s* (?&string) \s* : (?&json)  )
             (?<object>    \{  (?:  (?&pair)  (?: , (?&pair)  )*  )?  \s* \} )
             (?<json>   \s* (?: (?&number) | (?&boolean) | (?&string) | (?&array) | (?&object) ) \s* )
          )
          \A (?&json) \Z
          /six';

So now all legal tests from json.org can be passed.

Answer 3

Yes, a complete regex validation is possible.

Most modern regex implementations allow for recursive regexpressions, which can verify a complete JSON serialized structure. The json.org specification makes it quite straightforward.

$pcre_regex = '
  /
  (?(DEFINE)
     (?<number>   -? (?= [1-9]|0(?!\d) ) \d+ (\.\d+)? ([eE] [+-]? \d+)? )    
     (?<boolean>   true | false | null )
     (?<string>    " ([^"\\\\]* | \\\\ ["\\\\bfnrt\/] | \\\\ u [0-9a-f]{4} )* " )
     (?<array>     \[  (?:  (?&json)  (?: , (?&json)  )*  )?  \s* \] )
     (?<pair>      \s* (?&string) \s* : (?&json)  )
     (?<object>    \{  (?:  (?&pair)  (?: , (?&pair)  )*  )?  \s* \} )
     (?<json>   \s* (?: (?&number) | (?&boolean) | (?&string) | (?&array) | (?&object) ) \s* )
  )
  \A (?&json) \Z
  /six   
';

It works quite well in PHP with the PCRE functions . Should work unmodified in Perl; and can certainly be adapted for other languages. Also it succeeds with the JSON test cases.

Simpler RFC4627 verification

A simpler approach is the minimal consistency check as specified in RFC4627, section 6. It's however just intended as security test and basic non-validity precaution:

  var my_JSON_object = !(/[^,:{}\[\]0-9.\-+Eaeflnr-u \n\r\t]/.test(
         text.replace(/"(\\.|[^"\\])*"/g, ''))) &&
     eval('(' + text + ')');

Answer 4

I created a Ruby implementation of Mario's solution, which does work:

# encoding: utf-8

module Constants
  JSON_VALIDATOR_RE = /(
         # define subtypes and build up the json syntax, BNF-grammar-style
         # The {0} is a hack to simply define them as named groups here but not match on them yet
         # I added some atomic grouping to prevent catastrophic backtracking on invalid inputs
         (?<number>  -?(?=[1-9]|0(?!\d))\d+(\.\d+)?([eE][+-]?\d+)?){0}
         (?<boolean> true | false | null ){0}
         (?<string>  " (?>[^"\\\\]* | \\\\ ["\\\\bfnrt\/] | \\\\ u [0-9a-f]{4} )* " ){0}
         (?<array>   \[ (?> \g<json> (?: , \g<json> )* )? \s* \] ){0}
         (?<pair>    \s* \g<string> \s* : \g<json> ){0}
         (?<object>  \{ (?> \g<pair> (?: , \g<pair> )* )? \s* \} ){0}
         (?<json>    \s* (?> \g<number> | \g<boolean> | \g<string> | \g<array> | \g<object> ) \s* ){0}
       )
    \A \g<json> \Z
    /uix
end

########## inline test running
if __FILE__==$PROGRAM_NAME

  # support
  class String
    def unindent
      gsub(/^#{scan(/^(?!\n)\s*/).min_by{|l|l.length}}/u, "")
    end
  end

  require 'test/unit' unless defined? Test::Unit
  class JsonValidationTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
    include Constants

    def setup

    end

    def test_json_validator_simple_string
      assert_not_nil %s[ {"somedata": 5 }].match(JSON_VALIDATOR_RE)
    end

    def test_json_validator_deep_string
      long_json = <<-JSON.unindent
      {
          "glossary": {
              "title": "example glossary",
          "GlossDiv": {
                  "id": 1918723,
                  "boolean": true,
                  "title": "S",
            "GlossList": {
                      "GlossEntry": {
                          "ID": "SGML",
                "SortAs": "SGML",
                "GlossTerm": "Standard Generalized Markup Language",
                "Acronym": "SGML",
                "Abbrev": "ISO 8879:1986",
                "GlossDef": {
                              "para": "A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook.",
                  "GlossSeeAlso": ["GML", "XML"]
                          },
                "GlossSee": "markup"
                      }
                  }
              }
          }
      }
      JSON

      assert_not_nil long_json.match(JSON_VALIDATOR_RE)
    end

  end
end

Answer 5

As was written above, if the language you use has a JSON-library coming with it, use it to try decoding the string and catch the exception/error if it fails! If the language does not (just had such a case with FreeMarker) the following regex could at least provide some very basic validation (it's written for PHP/PCRE to be testable/usable for more users). It's not as foolproof as the accepted solution, but also not that scary =):

~^\{\s*\".*\}$|^\[\n?\{\s*\".*\}\n?\]$~s

short explanation:

// we have two possibilities in case the string is JSON
// 1. the string passed is "just" a JSON object, e.g. {"item": [], "anotheritem": "content"}
// this can be matched by the following regex which makes sure there is at least a {" at the
// beginning of the string and a } at the end of the string, whatever is inbetween is not checked!

^\{\s*\".*\}$

// OR (character "|" in the regex pattern)
// 2. the string passed is a JSON array, e.g. [{"item": "value"}, {"item": "value"}]
// which would be matched by the second part of the pattern above

^\[\n?\{\s*\".*\}\n?\]$

// the s modifier is used to make "." also match newline characters (can happen in prettyfied JSON)

if I missed something that would break this unintentionally, I'm grateful for comments!

Answer 6

I realize that this is from over 6 years ago. However, I think there is a solution that nobody here has mentioned that is way easier than regexing

function isAJSON(string) {
    try {
        JSON.parse(string)  
    } catch(e) {
        if(e instanceof SyntaxError) return false;
    };  
    return true;
}