Parsing an array encoded in JSON through perl

Question

I am using the Following Perl code to parse an array in JSON, using the JSON module. But the array returned has length 1 and I am not able to iterate over it properly. So the problem is I am not able to use the array returned.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

my $json_text = '[ {"name" : "abc", "text" : "text1"}, {"name" : "xyz", "text" : "text2"} ]';

use JSON;
use Data::Dumper::Names;

my @decoded_json = decode_json($json_text);
print Dumper(@decoded_json), length(@decoded_json), "\n";

The output comes :

$VAR1 = [
     {
        'text' => 'text1',
        'name' => 'abc'
      },
      {
        'text' => 'text2',
        'name' => 'xyz'
      }
    ];
1

Chas. Owens · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-12 14:24:41Z

26

The decode_json function returns an arrayref, not a list. You must dereference it to get the list:

my @decoded_json = @{decode_json($json_text)};

You may want to read perldoc perlreftut and perldoc perlref

edited Sep 12, 2010 at 14:24

answered Sep 12, 2010 at 14:07

Chas. Owens

65.1k25 gold badges139 silver badges232 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Niraj Nawanit Over a year ago

Dereferencing helps a bit. Now I am able to iterate over the array returned. But still I get length of the array = 1

Niraj Nawanit Over a year ago

My bad. Was using length(@decoded_json) to get length of the array!!

Christopher Bottoms · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-26 13:43:27Z

3

Regarding JSON, you may want to make sure you install the JSON::XS module as it is faster and more stable than the pure Perl implementation included with the JSON module. The JSON module will use JSON::XS automatically when it is available.

edited Mar 26, 2018 at 13:43

Christopher Bottoms

11.4k11 gold badges60 silver badges107 bronze badges

answered Sep 12, 2010 at 20:44

Tobi Oetiker

5,5502 gold badges20 silver badges25 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Parsing an array encoded in JSON through perl

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related