net.sf.json.JSONObject adds backslashes where it's not expected ?

Question

Hi there,

I'm loosing my hair trying to figure out why net.sf.json.JSONObject add extra backslash where it shouldn't on my java code :

JSONObject obj = new JSONObject ();
obj.element ("column_name", "<a href=\"#\" title=\"test\">Test !</a>");

will output :

<a href=\"#\" title=\"test\">Test !<\/a>

with an extra "\" near <\/a>.

How can I avoid this behavior ?

Thanks for your help !

Answer 1

It probably uses the same method to escape strings in JSON as it does JavaScript strings used in script blocks (<script ...> ... </script>) which according to HTML syntax rules may not include the character sequence </.

Does this make any difference to you? Escaping "random" characters doesn't change the meaning of a string literals in JSON or JavaScript. The string literals "/" and "\/" are technically absolutely identical:

if ("/" === "\/") alert("The same!");

EDIT: BTW, the JSON grammer explicitly lists the forward slash (solidus) as an character that can be escaped.