If newline is escaped to \n in normal JSON how would you escape it in JSON lines?

[matthewkrieger]

Since newline is escaped as \n in json strings how do you escape it in json lines format where the newline character (\n or \r\n) is the delimiter between objects?

[wardi]

This might need to be clarified in the docs. The separator between lines in json lines is the single UTF-8 byte '\n' i.e. a UNIX-style newline character chr(10) not a literal backslash-n sequence.

Newlines within json strings are already escaped backslash-n sequences so they don't conflict and whitespace within each json object may not include any UNIX-style newline characters chr(10) or they would conflict with the line separators.

Is that clear? Can you suggest a change to the wording that makes sense?

[matthewkrieger]

Thanks for responding so quickly. One clarification before I propose some alternate wording - in item 3 at http://jsonlines.org you said, "...'\r\n' is also supported...". In JSON lines format would this be two UTF-8 bytes, a chr(13) followed by a chr(10)?

[wardi]

yes. that was another way of saying as a side effect of the other rules "you can use MSDOS-style newline characters as well"

[matthewkrieger]

Ok then it all makes total sense and is very clear. With respect to a possible change in wording I might simply add another sentence to item 3 at http://jsonlines.org saying, "Note that the line separator is not represented as the string literal '\n' or '\r\n' but rather is represented with the single byte UTF-8 Unix-style chr(10) character for '\n' or, in the case of '\r\n' the two byte sequence of UTF-8 chr(10) immediately followed by a UTF-8 chr(13). This ensures there is no conflict with the standard escaping for reserved json characters.