Question

Am having a JSON structure as below

var myJSON = {
               "userTypes": {
                     "@type": "Array",
                     "type": [
                               "Administrator",
                               "Customer",
                               "Guest"
                              ]
                            }
             }

When I try to access myJSON.userTypes.@type am getting an error “SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL” but if I access like this myJSON.userTypes.type then am able to access the array.

So my question is,

1. does the @ symbol really doesn’t matter in key even it exist ?
2. What impact does this make ?

Regards,

Navin

Answer 1

When accessing a property in a JavaScript object you can do so with dot-notation or square-bracket notation.

If you use dot-notation, then you can only access properties which can be represented as an identifier. An identifier cannot start with an @ character.

Since the property you are trying to access cannot be represented by an identifier, you are limited to square bracket notation. Such:

myJSON.userTypes['@type']