How can I parse unquoted JSON with JavaScript?
4th February 2012
My answer to How can I parse unquoted JSON with JavaScript? on Quora
Unquoted JSON isn’t JSON—the JSON spec requires that strings are quoted (with double quotes, not single quotes).
If you have JSON with unquoted strings what you actually have is just plain JavaScript. So run eval() on it:
var obj = eval(’(’ + invalid_json + ’)’);
(adding the parentheses to the string ensures object literal syntax will be correctly handled).
Update: as pointed out in a comment, you should NOT do this if the JSON is from an untrusted source, especially if you are running the code in Node.js
More recent articles
- Grok: searching X for "from:elonmusk (Israel OR Palestine OR Hamas OR Gaza)" - 11th July 2025
- Phoenix.new is Fly's entry into the prompt-driven app development space - 23rd June 2025
- Trying out the new Gemini 2.5 model family - 17th June 2025