JEP-17 JSON functions (GorillaStack)

proposals/draft/jep-017-json-functions.md

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+# JSON Functions (GorillaStack)
+
+|||
+|---|---
+| **JEP**    | 17
+| **Author** | Chris Armstrong (Gorilla Stack)
+| **Status** | draft
+| **Created**| 31-10-2019
+
+## Abstract
+
+This document proposes adding functions for manipulating JSON data, including
+a `parse_json` and `to_json` function.
+
+## Motivation
+
+There is separate requirements to both parse JSON strings and to serialise
+full or partial object structures to JSON.
+
+## Specification
+
+The following functions will be added to the specification:
+
+### parse_json
+
+```
+any parse_json(string $json_data)
+```
+
+Parse string `$json_data` containing JSON data and produce an object structure that can be
+further manipulated by JMESPath.
+
+If the string contains invalid JSON, an error should be generated.
+
+### to_json
+
+```
+string to_json(any $value)
+```
+
+Serialise `$value` to a JSON string. No guarantees are made about formatting - this is
+implementation dependent.
+
+## Impact
+
+Although this introduces no changes to existing syntax or functions, it may be challenging
+to support correctly in implementations other than JavaScript if the underlying language
+does not contain a spec-compliant JSON parser or producing arbitrary object structures for
+use with JMESPath is difficult.