to_json adds double quote to beginning and end of string

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello all,

I have a question regarding the to_json function. If I create a string in script/console, and then apply the to_json method, it will take the first and last double quote as part of the string. Is this behaviour normal?

eg:

test = "my string" test.to_json will return "\"my string\""

Regards, Carl

2

I have a question regarding the to_json function. If I create a string in script/console, and then apply the to_json method, it will take the first and last double quote as part of the string. Is this behaviour normal?

eg:

test = "my string" test.to_json will return "\"my string\""

Yep. The rails console is printing test.to_json as a string value like any other. Notice if you output the test variable itself, being a string value, it's surrounded by double quotes. The same thing happens to test.to_json, with the added wrinkle that the value contains actual double quote characters, which are escaped for display.

- donald

3

It's not taking the first and last double quote as part of the string, per say. It's just generating a valid JSON object for you. In the case of a bare words like: my string, the JSON would be "my string".

'blah'.to_json

=> "\"blah\""

puts 'blah'.to_json

"blah" => nil