Opening a file [json file]

Factual Questions
1

I have a ‘json’ file downloaded on my tablet.
For the life of me I don’t remember what it is.

Can someone tell me how to open it?

2

That sounds like a Java Script File, you probably shouldn’t open it. In fact if you don’t know why its there, please don’t open it.

3

It’s not a Javascript file.

Use a text editor to open it. Usually there is a default option for that when you try to open it from the file browser, called “text editor” or “note editor” or something in that vein. A web browser should probably also be able to display it.

As for what is in there, it could be any type of data (again, in text format). You will be able to tell after opening it.

4

JSON is a format for data, sort of like xml or csv, if you know what those are. It should be in plain text, but most likely won’t mean much to you.

5

JSON is a format which compiles data that belongs together in a hierarchical manner. It’s often used to transfer data between different applications, so it’s quite likely that the file comes from you downloading some data set from some website in the past. Any text editor, such as Notepad on Windows, should be able to open it. What you see when you open it will be lots of curly braces of the { and } sort, which are used to structure the data. It’s not executable program code.

6

Ok. I got all the weird symbols and unintelligible text.
I agree it’s probably leftover from something I saved or downloaded.
I’ve deleted it.

Thank you guys for your help.
beck

7

Here is a sample JSON file ripped off of Wikipedia, to see what it looks like:

{
  "firstName": "John",
  "lastName": "Smith",
  "isAlive": true,
  "age": 27,
  "address": {
    "streetAddress": "21 2nd Street",
    "city": "New York",
    "state": "NY",
    "postalCode": "10021-3100"
  },
  "phoneNumbers": [
    {
      "type": "home",
      "number": "212 555-1234"
    },
    {
      "type": "office",
      "number": "646 555-4567"
    }
  ],
  "children": [],
  "spouse": null
}
8

Yep that’s exactly what it looked like

9

Do you play any games on the tablet? JSON files are pretty common in many games (I have about a gazillion of them from game mods of “Stardew Valley”) and if you know what you’re doing you can use them to change your stats in the game–the file keeps track of stuff like how many lives you have right now and whether or not you’ve completed some in-game task. If you do play games deleting the file might mean you’re back to square one in some game.

10

To give more context: JSON files are a frequently used data storage and exchange format because it’s near the optimal point of complexity vs simplicity. It’s text based and relatively simple to read and write. But it can contain complicated and multi-level data as well. Because many computer languages, tools, and systems can read/write JSON files, they’re a de facto standard for portable data storage and transfer.