Question

I get a JSON file via jQuery $.getJSON(url, function(data) { …
and want to parse it with either

var obj = JSON.parse(data);

or

var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(data);

The first line gives me “syntax error” (using IE8, should support JSON.parse), the second gives me “‘center’ is null or not an object”.

This is the valid JSON file I’m using:

{
"center":{"lat":"51.99637","lon":"13.07520"},
"locations":
[
    { "name":"a string","info":"another string" },
    ... some more here ...
]
}

I’m not too familiar with Javascript. What am I doing wrong?

If I use a simple JSON array (= just the content of locations) I get valid data with $.each.
Do I have to do something with data before I can use JSON.parse on it?

Answer 1

The problem is that the name of the function is slightly misleading : it doesn’t give you JSON but already a parsed object. What it does is fetch some JSON and parse it for you.

data is a plain javascript object, you don’t need to parse it.