How to escape a JSON string to have it in a URL?

encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(object_to_be_serialised))

You could use the encodeURIComponent to safely URL encode parts of a query string:

var array = JSON.stringify([ 'foo', 'bar' ]);
var url = 'http://example.com/?data=' + encodeURIComponent(array);

or if you are sending this as an AJAX request:

var array = JSON.stringify([ 'foo', 'bar' ]);
$.ajax({
    url: 'http://example.com/',
    type: 'GET',
    data: { data: array },
    success: function(result) {
        // process the results
    }
});

I was looking to do the same thing. problem for me was my url was getting way too long. I found a solution today using Bruno Jouhier's jsUrl.js library.

I haven't tested it very thoroughly yet. However, here is an example showing character lengths of the string output after encoding the same large object using 3 different methods:

• 2651 characters using jQuery.param
• 1691 characters using JSON.stringify + encodeURIComponent
• 821 characters using JSURL.stringify

clearly JSURL has the most optimized format for urlEncoding a js object.

the thread at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/nodejs/ivdZuGCF86Q shows benchmarks for encoding and parsing.

Note: After testing, it looks like jsurl.js library uses ECMAScript 5 functions such as Object.keys, Array.map, and Array.filter. Therefore, it will only work on modern browsers (no ie 8 and under). However, are polyfills for these functions that would make it compatible with more browsers.

• for array: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2790686/467286
• for object.keys: https://stackoverflow.com/a/3937321/467286