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[justin walters]

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 4:40 PM, Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 2017-06-14, justin walters <walters.justin01 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I should also specify that the data you have received is malformed.
> >
> > JSON should always have an object as the top level structure, not an
> > array as in your data.
>
> Where is that requirement stated?
>
> RFC7159 explicitly states that a "conforming JSON text" can be either
> an array or an object:
>
>
>    2.  JSON Grammar
>
>    A JSON text is a sequence of tokens.  The set of tokens includes
>    six structural characters, strings, numbers, and three literal
>    names.
>
>    A JSON text is a serialized value.  Note that certain previous
>    specifications of JSON constrained a JSON text to be an object or
>    an array.  Implementations that generate only objects or arrays
>    where a JSON text is called for will be interoperable in the sense
>    that all implementations will accept these as conforming JSON
>    texts.
>
> The grammar specified by later in that section also allow a JSON text
> to contain nothing but a single simple value: string, number 'null'
> 'true' or 'false'.  IOW, a file containing a single digit (0-9) is
> valid JSON.
>
> --
> Grant
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>

That's why I said "should", not "required".

Generally, it's considered best practice for web APIs.

I also did not say that the data is "invalid", I said it is "malformed".