JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) has turned out to be an incredibly useful standard for transferring data from one machine, process, or node to another. Often, a client sends a data request to a server, upon which that server queries the data in local storage and then converts it from something like an SQL Server, MySQL, or PostgreSQL table or tables into JSON, which the client can consume. This is sometimes complicated further by the first server (say, a web server) forwarding the request to a database server. JSON facilitates this, as does XML, by doing the following:
- Being readable by humans
- Being consumable by most client devices
- Not being limited in structure
JSON is quite flexible, which means that it can accommodate just about anything, no matter how unwise. The structure can even change within a JSON file, so different keys might be present at different points. For example, the file might begin with some explanatory...