JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
JSON is the dominant data-interchange format for web APIs — objects, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans, null — standardized by RFC 8259 and ECMA-404, and the serialization behind REST APIs, FHIR resources, and most modern configuration.
Why it won
JSON maps directly onto the data structures of mainstream languages — parse it and you get dictionaries, lists, and scalars, no impedance mismatch. Compared to XML it is dramatically terser: no closing tags, no namespace machinery, no attribute/element ambiguity. The trade-off is a smaller toolbox — no built-in validation language (JSON Schema fills the gap) and no comments in the strict grammar.
RFC 8259 defines the interoperable subset; ECMA-404 is the twin standard. Numbers have arbitrary precision in the spec, but real-world parsers inherit IEEE-754 limits — a classic interoperability trap with 64-bit integers.
Where you meet it
Every REST API response, FHIR resources, AWS IAM policies, CCSDS OMM satellite data, package manifests, and most config files. Our toolkit converts XML↔JSON bidirectionally, and the TLE converter emits OMM/GP JSON for satellite catalogs.
Related Standards
- •RFC 8259 — The JSON Data Interchange Format
- •ECMA-404 — JSON specification
- •JSON Schema — validation vocabulary
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