JSON without array wrapper on lower levels

Question

All I try to get is a simple SQL statement to build:

 {\"status\":{\"code\":404,\"message\":\"Not found\"},\"otherthing\":20}

If I set as :

Answer 1

I think that Matheno (in the comments) is right: apparently the problem is that FOR JSON escapes your text. To prevent this unwanted escaping of inner JSON you could wrap it with JSON_QUERY():

DECLARE @ReturnJSON nvarchar(max)
DECLARE @innerJSON nvarchar(max)

set @innerJSON =(        SELECT 404 as [code]
              ,'Not found' as [message] 
               FOR JSON PATH, WITHOUT_ARRAY_WRAPPER )

SET @ReturnJSON = (
    SELECT ( 
        JSON_QUERY(@innerJSON)
               ) as [status]
       , 20 as [otherthing]
   FOR JSON PATH, WITHOUT_ARRAY_WRAPPER) ;

SELECT @ReturnJSON 

This outputs:

{"status":{"code":404,"message":"Not found"},"otherthing":20}

Answer 2

It's not exact answer to your question, but I hope it will give solution to your problem.

You can construct expected output without nested query, just define hierarchy using property names, like this:

DECLARE @ReturnJSON nvarchar(max)

SET @ReturnJSON = (
    SELECT 
        404 as [status.code]
        ,'Not found' as [status.message]
        , 20 as [otherthing]
    FOR JSON PATH, WITHOUT_ARRAY_WRAPPER) ;

SELECT @ReturnJSON