# Tech Tuesday: Data Structures (JSON)

By [Continuations](https://continuations.com) · 2012-09-25

tech tuesday, programming, data structures, json

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In today’s [Tech Tuesday](http://continuations.com/tagged/tech_tuesday) we are continuing our romp through [Data Structures](http://continuations.com/post/30865209047/tech-tuesday-data-structures-overview) as part of the ongoing series on [programming](http://continuations.com/post/21265111368/tech-tuesday-programming-overview) by looking at [JSON](http://json.org/).  Now technically JSON, which stands for [JavaScript Object Notation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON), is not a data structure but a textual notation (as its name implies).  But JSON has become ubiquitous and provides a natural segue to objects (next Tuesday) that I figured it makes sense to discuss it here.

Sticking with the example of points, the JSON for a point might look like the following

In this example instead of a single string for a color (“blue”) as before, I am showing how JSON lets us describe levels of nesting.  The [red, green and blue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGB_color_model) are sub-attributes of the color attribute.

How would we actually use this JSON?  In modern implementations of JavaScript, we can make a direct assignment of JSON to a variable as follows:

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*Originally published on [Continuations](https://continuations.com/tech-tuesday-data-structures-json)*