[jameshart]

Actually actually... the JSON spec doesn't define the concept of a JSON document. Neither http://www.json.org/ nor http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST... actually specifies that a JSON 'document' is synonymous with a JSON 'value'.

Now it's also true that JSON doesn't specify an entity that can be either an object or an array but not be a string or a bool or a number or null. So it's kind of true that JSON doesn't say that an object or array are valid root elements.

But JSON also says "JSON is built on two structures" - arrays and objects. It defines those two structures in terms of 'JSON values'. But it's a reasonable way to read the JSON spec to say that it defines a concept of a 'JSON structure' as an array or object - but not a plain value. And then to assume that a .json file contains a JSON 'structure'.

Basically... JSON's just not as well defined a standard as you might hope.

edit: And now I'm going to well actually myself: Turns out https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4627 defines a thing called a 'JSON text' which is an array or an object, and says that a 'JSON text' is what a JSON parser should be expected to parse.

So - pick a standard.

[niftich]

JSON is in fact defined in (at least) six different places, as described in the piece 'Parsing JSON is a Minefield' [1] (HN: [2]).

The problem is perhaps not as egregious as with "CSV" -- which is more of a "technique" rather than a format, despite after 30 years of customary usage, someone retroactively having written a spec; but it does manifest in various edge cases like we're debating.

[1] http://seriot.ch/parsing_json.php [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12796556

[d0mine]

Why are you referencing the obsolete rfc? There is no restriction to object/array for the JSON text in the current rfc https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159

[dwaite]

The current RFC recommends the use of an object or array for interoperability with the previous specification. JSON being a bit of a clusterf* of variants, they tried to make the RFC broad then place interoperability limitations on it. (lenient in what you accept, etc etc)

[jameshart]

Because I just discovered that there was, at least once, a specification that actually defined JSON that way, where previously I had thought it had only been ambiguously described, and I thought that was interesting.