There's probably some setting to escape these, but there appears to be absolutely zero documentation on HOLD FORMAT JSON.

Here's the issue:

TABLE FILE CAR
SUM
     COMPUTE OUCH/A20 = 'A "quote"!';
BY  COUNTRY
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT JSON
END

This returns JSON:

{ "records" : [
{ "COUNTRY" : "ENGLAND","OUCH" : "A "quote"!" }
,
{ "COUNTRY" : "FRANCE","OUCH" : "A "quote"!" }
,
{ "COUNTRY" : "ITALY","OUCH" : "A "quote"!" }
,
{ "COUNTRY" : "JAPAN","OUCH" : "A "quote"!" }
,
{ "COUNTRY" : "W GERMANY","OUCH" : "A "quote"!" }
] }

The quotes in the COMPUTE don't get escaped! Invalid JSON is the result.
Unfortunately, we have some data that contains double-quotes in descriptions (not so strange for a tyre company; wheel sizes are usually expressed in inches!).

For XML formats, we can enable SET HTMLENCODE ON. Is there a similar setting for JSON?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FP Mod Chuck,

This is what you want. Right?

{"records" : [
{"COUNTRY" : "ENGLAND","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "FRANCE","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "ITALY","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "JAPAN","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "W GERMANY","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
]}

The Escaping special characters functionality was put in WebFOCUS 8203 (DM 7708).

Efrem

You will probably have to use something like STRREP to replace " with \" before the data is returned.

So, I replaced the PCHOLD with HOLD and saved the output to the baseapp folder:

  
TABLE FILE CAR
SUM
     COMPUTE OUCH/A20 = 'A "quote"!';
BY  COUNTRY
ON TABLE HOLD AS baseapp/_json FORMAT JSON
END

When I opened the json file with a text editor (since AppStudio can't open it) It has the properly escaped double quotes:

  
{"records" : [
{"COUNTRY" : "ENGLAND","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "FRANCE","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "ITALY","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "JAPAN","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
,
{"COUNTRY" : "W GERMANY","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"}
]}

I am on version 8202M, so maybe that is a bug in your 8.1.03 version. I would submit a ticket.

This works for an HTML output as well:

  
TABLE FILE CAR
SUM
     COMPUTE OUCH/A20 = 'A "quote"!';
BY  COUNTRY
ON TABLE HOLD FORMAT JSON
END

-HTMLFORM BEGIN NOEVAL
<pre>
!IBI.FIL.HOLD;
</pre>
-HTMLFORM END

Try changing the PCHOLD to HOLD and see if that makes a difference.

Hi Wep,

I didn't even know JSON was an option. ( but we still on 8.009 ).

I've tested your code on our to-be-environment ( 8203 ) there it works fine.

I do get escaped output:

snippet:

{"records" : [{"COUNTRY" : "ENGLAND","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"},{"COUNTRY" : "FRANCE","OUCH" : "A \"quote\"!"},{"

might be a 'know-to-some' bug that's been fixed in ( at least ) 8203.

Greets,
Dave

Thanks for confirming this fixed in 82.

This means that the 8103 JSON implementation has several issues that I know of:

• Single item results have mismatching accolade pairs
  
• Double-quotes in strings are not escaped
  
• There is no documentation

Bit of a mess...

Wep5622,
May I suggest that you open a Hottrack case asking for a Documentation enhancement for HOLD FORMAT JSON.

It could help other users in the future.