regex - Regular Expression to add double quotes around keys in JavaScript

Question

I am using jQuery's getJSON function to make a request and handle the JSON response. The problem is the response I get back is malformed and I can't change it. The response looks something like this:

{
    aNumber: 200,    
    someText: ''hello' world',
    anObject: {
        'foo': 'fooValue',
        'bar': '10.0'
    } 
}

To be valid JSON, it should look like this:

{
    "aNumber": 200,    
    "someText": "'hello' world",
    "anObject": {
        "foo": "fooValue",
        "bar": "10.0"
    } 
}

I would like to change the text returned to a valid JSON object. I've used the JavaScript replace function to turn the single quotes into double quotes and the escaped single quotes into single quotes, but now I am stuck on figuring out the best way to add quotes around the key values.

For example, how would I change foo: "fooValue" to "foo":"fooValue"? Is there a Regular Expression that can make this easy?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

This regex will do the trick

$json = preg_replace('/([{,])(s*)([A-Za-z0-9_-]+?)s*:/','$1"$3":',$json);

It's a php though! I assume it's not a problem converting it to JS.