JSON is a typed data format, where details of formatting and interpretation of types is left to the implementation. If you're not using Javascript, encoding an

JSON is a typed data format, where details of formatting and interpretation of types is left to the implementation. If you're not using Javascript, encoding and extracting the type information can be tricky unless you know the source well and understand the type formalisms it uses. Thus JSON isn't as handy as a universal data exchange format.