A JSONArray is an ordered sequence of values. Its external form is a string wrapped in square brackets with commas between the values. The internal form is an object having get() and opt() methods for accessing the values by index, and put() methods for adding or replacing values. The values can be any of these types: Boolean, JSONArray, JSONObject, Number, String, or the JSONObject.NULL object.
The constructor can convert a JSON external form string into an internal form Java object. The toString() method creates an external form string.
A get() method returns a value if one can be found, and throws an exception if one cannot be found. An opt() method returns a default value instead of throwing an exception, and so is useful for obtaining optional values.
The generic get() and opt() methods return an object which you can cast or query for type. There are also typed get() and opt() methods that do typing checking and type coersion for you.
The texts produced by the toString() methods are very strict. The constructors are more forgiving in the texts they will accept.
- An extra
,
(comma) may appear just before the closing bracket. - The null value will be inserted when there is
,
(comma) elision. - Strings may be quoted with
'
(single quote). - Strings do not need to be quoted at all if they do not begin with a quote or single quote, and if they do not contain leading or trailing spaces, and if they do not contain any of these characters:
{ } [ ] / \ : , = ; #
and if they do not look like numbers and if they are not the reserved words true
, false
, or null
. - Values can be followed by
;
as well as by ,
- Numbers may have the
0-
(octal) or 0x-
(hex) prefix. - Line comments can begin with
#
@author JSON.org
@version 1