[javascript] Parsing JSON giving "unexpected token o" error

I am having a problem parsing simple JSON strings. I have checked them on JSONLint and it shows that they are valid. But when I try to parse them using either JSON.parse or the jQuery alternative it gives me the error unexpected token o:

<!doctype HTML>
<html>
  <head>
  </head>
  <body>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      var cur_ques_details ={"ques_id":15,"ques_title":"jlkjlkjlkjljl"};
      var ques_list = JSON.parse(cur_ques_details);

      document.write(ques_list['ques_title']);
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Note: I'm encoding my strings using json_encode() in PHP.

This question is related to javascript json

The answer is


cur_ques_details is already a JS object, you don't need to parse it


Using JSON.stringify(data);:

$.ajax({
    url: ...
    success:function(data){
        JSON.stringify(data); //to string
        alert(data.you_value); //to view you pop up
    }
});

Response is already parsed, you don't need to parse it again. if you parse it again it will give you "unexpected token o". if you need to get it as string, you could use JSON.stringify()


Try parse so:

var yourval = jQuery.parseJSON(JSON.stringify(data));

I had the same problem when I submitted data using jQuery AJAX:

$.ajax({
   url:...
   success:function(data){
      //server response's data is JSON
      //I use jQuery's parseJSON method 
      $.parseJSON(data);//it's ERROR
   }
});

If the response is JSON, and you use this method, the data you get is a JavaScript object, but if you use dataType:"text", data is a JSON string. Then the use of $.parseJSON is okay.


The source of your error, however, is that you need to place the full JSON string in quotes. The following will fix your sample:

<!doctype HTML>
<html>
    <head>
    </head>
    <body>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            var cur_ques_details ='{"ques_id":"15","ques_title":"jlkjlkjlkjljl"}';
            var ques_list = JSON.parse(cur_ques_details);
            document.write(ques_list['ques_title']);
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

As the other respondents have mentioned, the object is already parsed into a JS object so you don't need to parse it. To demonstrate how to accomplish the same thing without parsing, you can do the following:

<!doctype HTML>
<html>
<head>
</head>
    <body>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            var cur_ques_details ={"ques_id":"15","ques_title":"jlkjlkjlkjljl"};
            document.write(cur_ques_details.ques_title);
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

I was seeing this unexpected token o error because my (incomplete) code had run previously (live reload!) and set the particular keyed local storage value to [object Object] instead of {}. It wasn't until I changed keys, that things started working as expected. Alternatively, you can follow these instructions to delete the incorrectly set localStorage value.