Converting string to array in JavaScript

Question

I am making a asynchronous request to my server and its returning an array as a string. The string is in the proper array form for example:

"[{"spo":"I"},{"spo":"hate"},{"spo":"computers"}]"

Is there a way to simply create an array from this string?

• RobG: The builtin JSON function is best if available, you can also use eval: var x = '[1,2,3]';alert(eval(x));. That's how it was done in pre-JSON browsers.

Answer 1

That's a JSON string, you can create an array from it with:

JSON.parse('[{"spo":"I"},{"spo":"hate"},{"spo":"computers"}]')

In older browsers you may need to include the json2.js.

• Shamim Hafiz - MSFT: JSON.parse will return an Array object?
• KARASZI István: Yes it does, if the provided string is an encoded array which now is.
• James: My issue come from IE6. Fixed it as soon as I got you hint.

Answer 2

If you use jQuery, you can get it as array by specifying the dataType as Json. See jQuery.getJSON()

• James: Same as in Mootools and includes support for IE6
• RobG: Cool, include a 90k script to do something that can be done with built-in functions.
• Technowise: I meant to say if they are using jQuery. And jQuery is not 90k, just 31KB (minified).

Answer 3

The string happens to correspond to the JSON format, so you can use a JSON parser to turn it into an array, for example the JSON parser in jQuery:

var myLittleArray = $.parseJSON(theJsonString);