JSON-RPC

JSON-RPC is a remote procedure call protocol encoded in JSON. It is a very simple protocol (and very similar to XML-RPC), defining only a few data types and commands. JSON-RPC allows for notifications (data sent to the server that does not require a response) and for multiple calls to be sent to the server which may be answered out of order.

History
Version Description Dated
1.0 Original version 2005
1.1 WD Working draft. Adds named parameters, adds specific error codes, and adds introspection functions. 2006-08-07
1.1 Alt Suggestion for a simple JSON-RPC 1.1. Alternative proposal to 1.1 WD. 2007-05-06
1.1 Object Specification Object Specification. Alternative proposal to 1.1 WD/1.1ALT. 2007-07-30
1.2 Proposal. A later revision of this document was renamed to 2.0. 2007-12-27
2.0 Specification proposal 2009-05-24
2.0 (Revised-) Specification 2010-03-26

Usage

JSON-RPC works by sending a request to a server implementing this protocol. The client in that case is typically software intending to call a single method of a remote system. Multiple input parameters can be passed to the remote method as an array or object, whereas the method itself can return multiple output data as well. (This depends on the implemented version.)

All transfer types are single objects, serialized using JSON.[1] A request is a call to a specific method provided by a remote system. It must contain three certain properties:

  • method - A String with the name of the method to be invoked.
  • params - An Object or Array of values to be passed as parameters to the defined method.
  • id - A value of any type used to match the response with the request that it is replying to.

The receiver of the request must reply with a valid response to all received requests. A response must contain the properties mentioned below.

  • result - The data returned by the invoked method. This element is formatted as a JSON-stat object. If an error occurred while invoking the method, this value must be null.
  • error - A specified error code if there was an error invoking the method, otherwise null.
  • id - The id of the request it is responding to.

Since there are situations where no response is needed or even desired, notifications were introduced. A notification is similar to a request except for the id, which is not needed because no response will be returned. In this case the id property should be omitted (Version 2.0) or be null (Version 1.0).

Examples

In these examples, --> denotes data sent to a service (request), while <-- denotes data coming from a service. Although <-- is often called a response in client–server computing, depending on the JSON-RPC version it does not necessarily imply an answer to a request.

Version 2.0

Request and response:

--> {"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "subtract", "params": {"minuend": 42, "subtrahend": 23}, "id": 3}
<-- {"jsonrpc": "2.0", "result": 19, "id": 3}

Notification (no response):

--> {"jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "update", "params": [1,2,3,4,5]}

Version 1.1 (Working Draft)

Request and response:

--> {"version": "1.1", "method": "confirmFruitPurchase", "params": [["apple", "orange", "mangoes"], 1.123], "id": "194521489"}
<-- {"version": "1.1", "result": "done", "error": null, "id": "194521489"}

Version 1.0

Request and response:

--> {"method": "echo", "params": ["Hello JSON-RPC"], "id": 1}
<-- {"result": "Hello JSON-RPC", "error": null, "id": 1}

See also

References
  1. "specification - JSON-RPC - Trac". Archived from the original on 2008-05-17. Retrieved 2008-05-14.

Implementations
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