JSON: Data model and query languages

Despite the fact that JSON is currently one of the most popular formats for exchanging data on the Web, there are very few studies on this topic and there is no agreement upon a theoretical framework for dealing with JSON. Therefore in this paper we propose a formal data model for JSON documents and, based on the common features present in available systems using JSON, we define a lightweight query language allowing us to navigate through JSON documents, study the complexity of basic computational tasks associated with this language, and compare its expressive power with practical languages for managing JSON data. •Paper proposes the first formal abstraction for JSON data.•Also proposes a logic for navigating JSON documents.•This logic is demonstrated to be a common core for a number of JSON query languages available in industry.•Study of evaluation and containment of this logic. Surprisingly, some problems end up easier and others more difficult than similar formalisms (such as XML).