jsoncomments

Can comments be used in JSON?


Can I use comments inside a JSON file? If so, how?


Solution

  • No.

    JSON is data-only. If you include a comment, then it must be data too.

    You could have a designated data element called "_comment" (or something) that should be ignored by apps that use the JSON data.

    You would probably be better having the comment in the processes that generates/receives the JSON, as they are supposed to know what the JSON data will be in advance, or at least the structure of it.

    But if you decided to:

    {
       "_comment": "comment text goes here...",
       "glossary": {
          "title": "example glossary",
          "GlossDiv": {
             "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"
                }
             }
          }
       }
    }