json and empty array

Question

I have the following json           users                  user                       user id     a11uhk22hsd3jbskj            username    tom            location    null                      I get this json in response to a request to an api  Looking at the doc for this api  location is supposed to be an array  containing geodata  latitude  longitude address etc   Now the question is   there s an error in the json  I mean  location doesn t seems to me  to be an array  or is possible to represent a null array in that way  and if yes what is the difference between       location    null   location         Thanks in advance

User · Answer

The first version is a null object while the second is an Array object with zero elements.

Null may mean here for example that no location is available for that user, no location has been requested or that some restrictions apply. Hard to tell with no reference to the API.

User · Answer

location    null    this is not really an array it s a null object  location            this is an empty array   It looks like this API returns null when there is no location defined - instead of returning an empty array  not too unusual really - but they should tell you if they re going to do this

User · Answer

null is a legal value  and reserved word  in JSON  but some environments do not have a  NULL  object  as opposed to a NULL value  and hence cannot accurately represent the JSON null   So they will sometimes represent it as an empty array   Whether null is a legal value in that particular element of that particular API is entirely up to the API designer

[arrays] json and empty array

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