JSON no longer parsable after being sent through TCP in Ruby - json

Question

I've created a basic client and server that pass a string, which I've changed to JSON instead. But the JSON string is only parsable before it gets sent through TCP. After it's sent, the string version is identical (after a chomp), but on the server side it no longer processes the JSON correctly. Here is some of my code (with other bits trimmed)
Some of the client code
require 'json'
require 'socket'
foo = {'a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3}
puts foo.to_s + "......."
foo.to_json
puts foo['b'] # => outputs the correct '2' answer
client = TCPSocket.open('localhost', 2000)
client.puts json
client.close;
Some of the server code
require 'socket'
require 'json'
server = TCPServer.open(2000)
while true
client = server.accept # Accept client
response = client.gets
print response
response = response.chomp
response.to_json
puts response['b'] # => outputs 'b'
end
The output 'b' should be '2' instead. How do I fix this?
Thanks

Answer 1

In your server you wrote response.to_json. This turns a string to JSON, then throws it away. And I don't like the .chomp, either.
Try
response = client.gets
hash = JSON.parse(response)
Now hash is a Ruby Hash object with your data in it, and hash['b'] should work correctly.

Answer 2

The problem is that .to_json does not parse JSON inside a string and replace itself with the result. It is used to convert the string into a format that is an acceptable JSON value.
require 'json'
string = "abc"
puts string
puts string.to_json
This will output:
abc
"abc"
The method is added to the String class by the JSON generator and it uses it internally to generate the JSON document.
But why does your response['b'] return "b"?
Because Ruby strings have a method called [] that can be used to:
Return a substring: "abc"[0,2] => "ab"
Return a single character from index: "abc"[1] => "b"
Return a substring if the string contains it: "abc"["bc"] => "bc", "abc"["fg"] => nil
Return a regexp match: "abc"[/^a([a-z])c/, 1] => "b"
and possibly some other ways I can't think of right now.
So this happens because your response is a string that has the character "b" in it:
response = "something with a b"
puts response["b"]
# outputs b
puts response["x"]
# outputs a blank line because response does not contain "x".
Instead of .to_json your code has to call JSON.parse or JSON.load:
data = JSON.parse(response)
puts data['b']