Ruby objects and JSON serialization (without Rails)

Asked 2010-12-16T18:19:17.747

I'm trying to understand the JSON serialization landscape in Ruby. I'm new to Ruby.

Is there any good JSON serialization options if you are not working with Rails?

That seems to be where this answer goes (to Rails) How to convert a Ruby object to JSON

The json gem seems to make it look like you have to write your own to_json method. I haven't been able to get to_json to work with arrays and hashes (documentation says it works with these) Is there a reason the json gem doesn't just reflect over the object and use a default serialization strategy? Isn't this how to_yaml works (guessing here)

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What version of Ruby are you using? ruby -v will tell you.

If it's 1.9.2, JSON is included in the standard library.

If you're on 1.8.something then do gem install json and it'll install. Then, in your code do:

require 'rubygems'
require 'json'

Then append to_json to an object and you're good to go:

asdf = {'a' => 'b'} #=> {"a"=>"b"}
asdf.to_json #=> "{"a":"b"}"

answered 2010-12-16T23:58:07.723

Ruby objects and JSON serialization (without Rails)

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