How to code long JSON value strings as multiline?

Question

IMPORTANT: I am not asking about rendering strings as multiline.

I am talking about splitting a long string in a JSON into multiple lines in my source code when this string should logically be on a single line.

In short: I want source line breaking rules similar to HTML.

{
    "id": 550,
    "text": "this is long text "
            "very-very-very long text "
            "longer than you can imagine."
}

This text should be rendered as:

this is long text very-very-very long text longer than you can imagine.

The JSON is being referenced in JavaScript.

This is not a duplicate of Multiline strings in JSON because this question strongly refers to JavaScript and that question has no clear accepted answer.

Possible duplicate of [Multiline strings in JSON](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2392766/multiline-strings-in-json) — Francisco Puga, Feb 11 '18 at 20:02
This is not a duplicate because that one is about \n inside string while this one is about how the same content is represented differently (more readable) in the JSON source. — user202729, Aug 29 '18 at 08:13

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 23 '22 at 10:47

12

You can use multiple lines string representation in JavaScript:

JSON.parse('{"a" : "a\
asd"}')

Tried in console. It works.

edited Feb 23 '22 at 10:47

Volker E.

5,911
11
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answered Jan 12 '14 at 16:33

Alex

11,115
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score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 22 '21 at 19:17

3

Use an array:

{
    "id": 550,
    "text": ["this is long text ",
            "very-very-very long text ",
            "longer than you can imagine."]
}

Assuming that this goes in this.messages, use in code

this.messages.text.join();

answered Oct 22 '21 at 19:17

horiatu

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 12 '14 at 16:26

0

According to JSONLint.com, the following multiline JSON is valid. So in short, yes, you can hit enter and break it into different lines.

{
    "a": 10,
    "b": 12,
    "c": 19
}

EDIT: I think I misread your question. I don't think you're able to break between a string like below. That does not work.

{
    "a": "abcde
    fg",
    "b": 12,
    "c": 19
}

answered Jan 12 '14 at 16:26

mjkaufer

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Can you explain the context? What language are you writing in, why do you need a line break, etc.? – mjkaufer Jan 12 '14 at 16:31
You may use an array of strings as in "a" : ["abcde", "fg"], Then in your js code use either join() (for a long line of text as "abcdefg") or join("\n") for a text representation of two lines. – horiatu Dec 03 '21 at 06:15

score -2 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 09 '16 at 21:37

-2

You can't do it, you need to write the value in one line, if you want write in the next row, you need to put \n in your code

answered Dec 09 '16 at 21:37

Jose Moreno

15

2

The question says clearly that it should be rendered as one row – lfk Mar 15 '18 at 23:14
He explicitly said that he is “not asking about *rendering* strings as multiline.” Perhaps you could give an example of how to work around this problem using JavaScript? Sorta like [Pinal’s answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/21077197/6845130). – Danny May 02 '21 at 06:51

How to code long JSON value strings as multiline?

4 Answers4