faster JSON parsing: json2.js vs json3.js

Question

So I've been looking for a faster way to parse large JSON files in Illustrator scripting and I think I may have found a solution if anyone else is ever looking for this:
Instead of the standard json2.js (https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js) I came across json3.js (https://github.com/bestiejs/json3) as a drop-in replacement.

In my use case (5mb+ JSON files), JSON.parse() is ~60x faster (5 seconds vs 5 mins) - seems to just be a more modern and faster implementation.

Only issue I've seen so far is a bit of funkiness with how it handles escaped non-Ascii characters.
Anybody else have experience with these libraries or know of any issues that might come up switching from json2 to json3?

sam272 · Accepted Answer

update for the "escaped non-Ascii characters" issue mentioned above:
line 642 in json3.js needs extra () to evaluate properly in Illustrator script for some reason or it will error on certain escaped characters (/u00ed for instance). I made a fork of json3 with this change if anyone needs it: https://github.com/sam272/json3forillustrator/blob/c98707a15a3d88f393749c6678ffbc43f89f4d53/lib/json3.js#L642

Will update with any other issues I find.

m1b · Answer

HI @sam272, I've been using json3.js since forever, because if I recall correctly, it handled recursive references better. I honestly didn't know it was faster. I can say that it has performed well for me. - Mark

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