When manually generating a JSON object or array, it's often easier to leave a trailing comma on the last item in the object or array. For example, code to output from an array of strings might look like (in a C++ like pseudocode):
s.append("[");
for (i = 0; i < 5; ++i) {
s.appendF("\"%d\",", i);
}
s.append("]");
giving you a string like
[0,1,2,3,4,5,]
Is this allowed?
Unfortunately the JSON specification does not allow a trailing comma. There are a few browsers that will allow it, but generally you need to worry about all browsers.
In general I try turn the problem around, and add the comma before the actual value, so you end up with code that looks like this:
s.append("[");
for (i = 0; i < 5; ++i) {
if (i) s.append(","); // add the comma only if this isn't the first entry
s.appendF("\"%d\"", i);
}
s.append("]");
That extra one line of code in your for loop is hardly expensive...
Another alternative I've used when output a structure to JSON from a dictionary of some form is to always append a comma after each entry (as you are doing above) and then add a dummy entry at the end that has not trailing comma (but that is just lazy ;->).
Doesn't work well with an array unfortunately.
No. The JSON spec, as maintained at http://json.org, does not allow trailing commas. From what I've seen, some parsers may silently allow them when reading a JSON string, while others will throw errors. For interoperability, you shouldn't include it.
The code above could be restructured, either to remove the trailing comma when adding the array terminator or to add the comma before items, skipping that for the first one.
Simple, cheap, easy to read, and always works regardless of the specs.
$delimiter = '';
for .... {
print $delimiter.$whatever
$delimiter = ',';
}
The redundant assignment to $delim is a very small price to pay.
Also works just as well if there is no explicit loop but separate code fragments.
Trailing commas are allowed in JavaScript, but don't work in IE. Douglas Crockford's versionless JSON spec didn't allow them, and because it was versionless this wasn't supposed to change. The ES5 JSON spec allowed them as an extension, but Crockford's RFC 4627 didn't, and ES5 reverted to disallowing them. Firefox followed suit. Internet Explorer is why we can't have nice things.
As it's been already said, JSON spec (based on ECMAScript 3) doesn't allow trailing comma. ES >= 5 allows it, so you can actually use that notation in pure JS. It's been argued about, and some parsers did support it (http://bolinfest.com/essays/json.html, http://whereswalden.com/2010/09/08/spidermonkey-json-change-trailing-commas-no-longer-accepted/), but it's the spec fact (as shown on http://json.org/) that it shouldn't work in JSON. That thing said...
... I'm wondering why no-one pointed out that you can actually split the loop at 0th iteration and use leading comma instead of trailing one to get rid of the comparison code smell and any actual performance overhead in the loop, resulting in a code that's actually shorter, simpler and faster (due to no branching/conditionals in the loop) than other solutions proposed.
E.g. (in a C-style pseudocode similar to OP's proposed code):
s.append("[");
// MAX == 5 here. if it's constant, you can inline it below and get rid of the comparison
if ( MAX > 0 ) {
s.appendF("\"%d\"", 0); // 0-th iteration
for( int i = 1; i < MAX; ++i ) {
s.appendF(",\"%d\"", i); // i-th iteration
}
}
s.append("]");
PHP coders may want to check out implode(). This takes an array joins it up using a string.
From the docs...
$array = array('lastname', 'email', 'phone');
echo implode(",", $array); // lastname,email,phone
Interestingly, both C & C++ (and I think C#, but I'm not sure) specifically allow the trailing comma -- for exactly the reason given: It make programmaticly generating lists much easier. Not sure why JavaScript didn't follow their lead.
Rather than engage in a debating club, I would adhere to the principle of Defensive Programming by combining both simple techniques in order to simplify interfacing with others:
As a developer of an app that receives json data, I'd be relaxed and allow the trailing comma.
When developing an app that writes json, I'd be strict and use one of the clever techniques of the other answers to only add commas between items and avoid the trailing comma.
There are bigger problems to be solved...
Use JSON5. Don't use JSON.
Objects and arrays can have trailing commas
Object keys can be unquoted if they're valid identifiers
Strings can be single-quoted
Strings can be split across multiple lines
Numbers can be hexadecimal (base 16)
Numbers can begin or end with a (leading or trailing) decimal point.
Numbers can include Infinity and -Infinity.
Numbers can begin with an explicit plus (+) sign.
Both inline (single-line) and block (multi-line) comments are allowed.
http://json5.org/
https://github.com/aseemk/json5
No. The "railroad diagrams" in https://json.org are an exact translation of the spec and make it clear a , always comes before a value, never directly before ]:
or }:
There is a possible way to avoid a if-branch in the loop.
s.append("[ "); // there is a space after the left bracket
for (i = 0; i < 5; ++i) {
s.appendF("\"%d\",", i); // always add comma
}
s.back() = ']'; // modify last comma (or the space) to right bracket
According to the Class JSONArray specification:
An extra , (comma) may appear just before the closing bracket.
The null value will be inserted when there is , (comma) elision.
So, as I understand it, it should be allowed to write:
[0,1,2,3,4,5,]
But it could happen that some parsers will return the 7 as item count (like IE8 as Daniel Earwicker pointed out) instead of the expected 6.
Edited:
I found this JSON Validator that validates a JSON string against RFC 4627 (The application/json media type for JavaScript Object Notation) and against the JavaScript language specification. Actually here an array with a trailing comma is considered valid just for JavaScript and not for the RFC 4627 specification.
However, in the RFC 4627 specification is stated that:
2.3. Arrays
An array structure is represented as square brackets surrounding zero
or more values (or elements). Elements are separated by commas.
array = begin-array [ value *( value-separator value ) ] end-array
To me this is again an interpretation problem. If you write that Elements are separated by commas (without stating something about special cases, like the last element), it could be understood in both ways.
P.S. RFC 4627 isn't a standard (as explicitly stated), and is already obsolited by RFC 7159 (which is a proposed standard) RFC 7159
It is not recommended, but you can still do something like this to parse it.
jsonStr = '[0,1,2,3,4,5,]';
let data;
eval('data = ' + jsonStr);
console.log(data)
With Relaxed JSON, you can have trailing commas, or just leave the commas out. They are optional.
There is no reason at all commas need to be present to parse a JSON-like document.
Take a look at the Relaxed JSON spec and you will see how 'noisy' the original JSON spec is. Way too many commas and quotes...
http://www.relaxedjson.org
You can also try out your example using this online RJSON parser and see it get parsed correctly.
http://www.relaxedjson.org/docs/converter.html?source=%5B0%2C1%2C2%2C3%2C4%2C5%2C%5D
As stated it is not allowed. But in JavaScript this is:
var a = Array()
for(let i=1; i<=5; i++) {
a.push(i)
}
var s = "[" + a.join(",") + "]"
(works fine in Firefox, Chrome, Edge, IE11, and without the let in IE9, 8, 7, 5)
From my past experience, I found that different browsers deal with trailing commas in JSON differently.
Both Firefox and Chrome handles it just fine. But IE (All versions) seems to break. I mean really break and stop reading the rest of the script.
Keeping that in mind, and also the fact that it's always nice to write compliant code, I suggest spending the extra effort of making sure that there's no trailing comma.
:)
I keep a current count and compare it to a total count. If the current count is less than the total count, I display the comma.
May not work if you don't have a total count prior to executing the JSON generation.
Then again, if your using PHP 5.2.0 or better, you can just format your response using the JSON API built in.
Since a for-loop is used to iterate over an array, or similar iterable data structure, we can use the length of the array as shown,
awk -v header="FirstName,LastName,DOB" '
BEGIN {
FS = ",";
print("[");
columns = split(header, column_names, ",");
}
{ print(" {");
for (i = 1; i < columns; i++) {
printf(" \"%s\":\"%s\",\n", column_names[i], $(i));
}
printf(" \"%s\":\"%s\"\n", column_names[i], $(i));
print(" }");
}
END { print("]"); } ' datafile.txt
With datafile.txt containing,
Angela,Baker,2010-05-23
Betty,Crockett,1990-12-07
David,Done,2003-10-31
String l = "[" + List<int>.generate(5, (i) => i + 1).join(",") + "]";
Using a trailing comma is not allowed for json. A solution I like, which you could do if you're not writing for an external recipient but for your own project, is to just strip (or replace by whitespace) the trailing comma on the receiving end before feeding it to the json parser. I do this for the trailing comma in the outermost json object. The convenient thing is then if you add an object at the end, you don't have to add a comma to the now second last object. This also makes for cleaner diffs if your config file is in a version control system, since it will only show the lines of the stuff you actually added.
char* str = readFile("myConfig.json");
char* chr = strrchr(str, '}') - 1;
int i = 0;
while( chr[i] == ' ' || chr[i] == '\n' ){
i--;
}
if( chr[i] == ',' ) chr[i] = ' ';
JsonParser parser;
parser.parse(str);
I usually loop over the array and attach a comma after every entry in the string. After the loop I delete the last comma again.
Maybe not the best way, but less expensive than checking every time if it's the last object in the loop I guess.
I'm using val globalList = listOf("a1" to "b1", "a2" to "b2") to create a large list of Pairs of strings.
All is fine until you try to put more than 1000 Pairs into a List. The compiler either takes > 5 minutes or just crashes (Both in IntelliJ and Android Studio).
Same happens if you use simple lists of Strings instead of Pairs.
Is there a better way / best practice to include large lists in your source code without resorting to a database?
You can replace a listOf(...) expression with a list created using a constructor or a factory function and adding the items to it:
val globalList: List<Pair<String, String>> = mutableListOf().apply {
add("a1" to "b1")
add("a2" to "b2")
// ...
}
This is definitely a simpler construct for the compiler to analyze.
If you need something quick and dirty instead of data files, one workaround is to use a large string, then split and map it into a list. Here's an example mapping into a list of Ints.
val onCommaWhitespace = "[\\s,]+".toRegex() // in this example split on commas w/ whitespace
val bigListOfNumbers: List<Int> = """
0, 1, 2, 3, 4,
:
:
:
8187, 8188, 8189, 8190, 8191
""".trimIndent()
.split(onCommaWhitespace)
.map { it.toInt() }
Of course for splitting into a list of Strings, you'd have to choose an appropriate delimiter and regex that don't interfere with the actual data set.
There's no good way to do what you want; for something that size, reading the values from a data file (or calculating them, if that were possible) is a far better solution all round — more maintainable, much faster to compile and run, easier to read and edit, less likely to cause trouble with build tools and frameworks…
If you let the compiler finish, its output will tell you the problem. (‘Always read the error messages’ should be one of the cardinal rules of development!)
I tried hotkey's version using apply(), and it eventually gave this error:
…
Caused by: org.jetbrains.org.objectweb.asm.MethodTooLargeException: Method too large: TestKt.main ()V
…
There's the problem: MethodTooLargeException. The JVM allows only 65535 bytes of bytecode within a single method; see this answer. That's the limit you're coming up against here: once you have too many entries, its code would exceed that limit, and so it can't be compiled.
If you were a real masochist, you could probably work around this to an extent by splitting the initialisation across many methods, keeping each one's code just under the limit. But please don't! For the sake of your colleagues, for the sake of your compiler, and for the sake of your own mental health…
Sometimes I'll start writing a chain of method calls at the Perl 6 REPL, like:
".".IO.dir.grep(...).map(...).
...and then I realize that what I want to do with the final list is print every element on its own line. I would expect sequences to have something like an each method so I could end the chain with .each(*.say), but there's no method like that that I can find. Instead I have to return to the beginning of the line and prepend .say for. It feels like it breaks up the flow of my thoughts.
It's a minor annoyance, but it strikes me as such a glaring omission that I wonder if I'm missing some easy alternative. The only ones I can think of are ».say and .join("\n").say, but the former can operate on the elements out of order (if I understand correctly) and the latter constructs a single string which could be problematically large, depending on the input list.
You can roll your own.
use MONKEY;
augment class Any
{
method each( &block )
{
for self -> $value {
&block( $value );
}
}
};
List.^compose;
Seq.^compose;
(1, 2).each({ .say });
(2, 3).map(* + 1).each({ .say });
# 1
# 2
# 3
# 4
If you like this, there's your First CPAN module opportunity right there.
As you wrote in the comment, just an other .map(*.say) does also create a line with True values when using REPL. You can try to call .sink method after the last map statement.
".".IO.dir.grep({$_.contains('e')}).map(*.uc).map(*.say).sink
I'm writing a Less mixin.
I want to be able to pass the mixin several parameters. The first will be a string. The rest, an infinite number of parameters, will be value pairs.
In my mixin how can I loop through the infinite number of parameters?
For example one time I will call...
.my-mixin(#name, #foo: bar, #hello: world);
and another time...
.my-mixin(#name, #iam: cool, #youare: lame, #someoneis: awesome);
Here's what it would look like if Less supported JS/PHP...
.my-mixin() {
#name: #arguments[0]; //First param
for (#arguments as #label => #value) {
#label: #value;
}
}
Is this possible?
In fact you ask two questions. First how to create a mixin that can accept an endless number of parameters, and secondly who to iterate over the list / array of parameters.
Less has the special ... syntax to create mixins with an endless number of parameters. The official documentation can be found here: Advanced arguments and the #rest variable. An example / use case can be found at Can I define a LESS mixin to generate a transition-property with a variable number of parameters?.
The special ... syntax can be used to assign the parameter list to a variable by adding the variable name before the ...:
.mixin(#parameter1, #endlesslistofparameters...) {}
The #endlesslistofparameters variable now contains a list of parameters, you can use the Less list functions to extract a value from this list (or find its length):
length() returns the length of a list and extract(#list,position) return the value of a certain position in the list. Notice that the first value is on position 1 and not 0.
Finally you can use a loop to iterate over this list of arguments.
In Less a mixin can call itself. Such recursive mixins, when combined
with Guard Expressions and Pattern Matching, can be used to create
various iterative/loop structures.
See also: Loop over an array of name value pairs in LESS
All together i think you can write something like that shown below:
.my-mixin(#name,#properties...) {
.setproperties(#iterator:1) when (#iterator <= length(#properties)) {
#propertyname: extract(extract(#properties,#iterator),1);
#{propertyname}: extract(extract(#properties,#iterator),2);
.setproperties((#iterator + 1));
}
.#{name} {
.setproperties();
}
}
.my-mixin(jared; iam cool, youare lame, someoneis awesome);
The preceding Less code will compile into the following CSS code:
.jared {
iam: cool;
youare: lame;
someoneis: awesome;
}
And than also notice that Less allows you to Passing Rulesets to Mixins since version 1.7, which enables you to write:
.my-mixin2(#name,#properties) {
.#{name} {
#properties();
}
}
.my-mixin2(jared; {iam: cool; youare: lame; someoneis: awesome;});