notes/technology

Fixed : “Json Array should begin with [” error on UTF-8 or UTF-16 files

Posted on by Sreekumar Kj

Problem : JSON file which store top level JSON arrays just wouldn’t parse (using org.json library), and gives out an error message like – “Json Array should begin with [ …..”. Editors like Vim or Gedit or IntelliJ show no errors (or any character before “[” )in these files.

Reason :  Byte order marker character is prefixed to the file content (this was probably added when I converted the files from UTF-16 to UTF-8).

Fix:

  1. Open the file in Vim.
  2. Run command-   :set nobomb
  3. save and exit. (:wq)
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Sreekumar Kj
Sreekumar (KJ) has been a hobby programmer from school days. Codemarvels is his personal blog from the year 2010, where he writes about technology, philosophy, society and a bit about physics. He now runs a conversational AI company - DheeYantra - focusing his efforts to help businesses improve operational efficiency using digital employees powered by AI.