A tidy solution for using static JSON data

Question

I'm developing a simple JavaScript (jQuery) slide show. I wanted to use JSON to store some some static parameters about the content of each slide.

Since I like to keep my data separate from my code, is there anyway to have JavaScript evaluate a .json file?

• AJAX seems a bit overkill - it just needs to evaluate it at run-time, nothing is dynamic.
• I could have a separate .js file that holds my JSON data as an object - but this seems messy.

So before I use one of the above solutions, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a cleaner way to have JavaScript evaluate a text file.

Answer 1

What's wrong with having a separate js file for your object? It has to live somewhere. I agree ajax is overkill, but I'm at a loss for why you think a JavaScript object in a .js file is "messy."

Answer 2

Evaluating JSON is very easy:

var jsonString = "{'name': 'Joe', 'age': 36}";

var data = eval('(' + jsonString + ')');
data.name // 'Joe'
data.age  // 36

The easiest way to store this data is to put it in an <input type="hidden"> and then read it using document.getElementById('hiddenElementId').value.

---

The complete picture:

HTML

<input type="hidden" id="hiddenElementId" value="{'name': 'Joe', 'age': 36}" />

JS

function getData() {
     var jsonString = document.getElementById('hiddenElementId').value;
     var data = var data = eval('(' + jsonString + ')');
     return data;
}

It's not actually necessary to be a hidden element - you can put it in an attribute in one of the images.

---

Another option is to stick it into a <script> tag under some name.

<script type="text/javascript">
    var data = {'name': 'Joe', 'age': 36};
</script>

This way data becomes a global variable (something I don't like so much) and can be used from everywhere. It's a simple solution, but a bit messy - I would go with the first one.

Answer 3

J-Query has a parse JSON function that even works in IE..

$.parseJSON("{'json':'rules for data'}");

Enjoy..

but just a question how to make it tidy like:

FUNCTION_HOWTO({json:'test',p2:'part2'}) = {
    json:'test',
    p2:'part two'
}