Is JSON Fast and Reliable?

JSON produces smaller documents, and JSON is certainly easier to use in JavaScript. XMLHttpRequest parses XML documents for you whereas you have to manually parse JSON, but is parsing JSON slower than parsing XML?


When it comes to making AJAX behave like a desktop application, speed is everything, and clearly, , JSON is a winner..


Test in your browser -Benchmarking AJAX - JSON vs XML.

MySQL to JSON

Add to simplicity and might even save some valuable server time. If you're running MySQL 4.1 or later you can use the nifty function GROUP_CONCAT() together with the normal CONCAT() function to build all your JSON straight from your SQL query.

username	email
tommy	tommy@tommysplace.com
jane	jane@examples.com
jack	jack@iford.com

Our SQL table.

SELECT
   CONCAT("[",
        GROUP_CONCAT(
             CONCAT("{username:'",username,"'"),
             CONCAT(",email:'",email),"'}")
        )
   ,"]")
AS json FROM users;

A MySQL-query that returns JSON.

[
   {username:'tommy',email:'tommy@tommysplace.com'},
   {username:'jane',email:'jane@examples.com'},
   {username:'jack',email:'jack@jiford.com'}
]

The returned JSON structure.