Add option to return objects as Maps to support ordered properties

[contact-ouyang]

I understood that the json object is designed to be unordered, and json arrays will preserve order. So if I would like to preserve the order , then I should use list instead of object, but it is not convenient if I have an OrderedDictionary in the backend.

Now I am using c# for backend, in c#, it has OrderedDictionary which will preserve the order. After I marshal the OrderedDictionary to json, the order will be lost. When I debug the code, I found the OrderedDictionary was totally fine , the only problem was JSON changed the order of the key.

After I google about how to solve the problem, I realized that I am not the only one who asked about how to keep the order of keys in json object. Most backend languages have something similar to OrderedList, when they marshal to json , they have the same problems, and all the solutions say that we should use array instead of object.

Can we have a new type of object to keep the order of the keys so that the OrderedDictionary can marshal to json with preserved order? Thanks.

[jordanbtucker]

You bring up some very interesting points, but are you sure you're posting in the right place. This is the repository for JSON5, a version of JSON that's easier for humans to read and write, but you don't mention JSON5 in your post anywhere.

That being said, it might be interesting to include an option in this library that returns a Map in place of each Object when parsing, and accepts Maps in place of Objects when stringifying. A Map is JavaScript's version of an ordered dictionary, however the keys of a Map can be non-string values. JSON.stringify treats Maps as empty objects.

[contact-ouyang]

Thank you for your reply. Sorry that I might post the question in the wrong place. I thought JSON5 is improved JSON, I might have misunderstood the purpose of JSON5 library, maybe JSON5 is more about easier configuration purpose, I guess.

It is great If I have an additional type Map in JSON/JSON5 to exchange data, then I don't need to think about transform OrderedList to an Array (to remember the order) + an Object (to remember the key value).

[h-h-h-h]

@jordanbtucker:

I'd also like to request the option to preserve the order with parse() and stringify() by using Maps. The npm package json-in-order also does this.

This is useful when deriving locale files with string IDs from a main locale file and you want changes like reordering strings or inserting a new string in a specific context to be transferred to the derived files.

If this feature becomes available, editing software like translation webapps could also start to uphold the order.

[jordanbtucker]

Reopening this issue to accommodate more discussion.

[h-h-h-h]

• It sounds like the JSON5-supporting Python library anymarkup would prefer being able to preserve JSON order: https://github.com/bkabrda/anymarkup#notes-on-ordereddict
• And it's conceivable that any software not only reading JSON5 (like the ones from the wiki), but also writing it back (similar to npm's package.json), would also prefer to keep user choices like key order as is.
• It's also a common wish/source of confusion: https://www.google.com/search?q=json+object+reordered