/JSON.minify

Simple minifier for JSON to remove comments and whitespace

Primary LanguageJava

/*! JSON.minify()
	v0.1 (c) Kyle Simpson
	MIT License
*/

JSON.minify() minifies blocks of JSON-like content into valid JSON by removing all 
whitespace *and* comments.

JSON parsers (like JavaScript's JSON.parse() parser) generally don't consider JSON
with comments to be valid and parseable. So, the intended usage is to minify 
development-friendly JSON (with comments) to valid JSON before parsing, such as:

JSON.parse(JSON.minify(str));

Now you can maintain development-friendly JSON documents, but minify them before
parsing or before transmitting them over-the-wire.

Though comments are not officially part of the JSON standard, this post from
Douglas Crockford back in late 2005 helps explain the motivation behind this project.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/json/message/152

"A JSON encoder MUST NOT output comments. A JSON decoder MAY accept and ignore comments."

Basically, comments are not in the JSON *generation* standard, but that doesn't mean
that a parser can't be taught to ignore them. Which is exactly what JSON.minify()
is for.

The first implementation of JSON.minify() is in JavaScript, but the intent is to
port the implementation to as many other environments as possible/practical.

NOTE: As transmitting bloated (ie, with comments/whitespace) JSON would be wasteful
and silly, this JSON.minify() is intended for use in server-side processing
environments where you can strip comments/whitespace from JSON before parsing
a JSON document, or before transmitting such over-the-wire from server to browser.