IE7 expected a string, identifier or number

JSON is nice to read. It’s also nice when parsers are forgiving, but here we are.

I just spent ages chasing [what I thought was] a bug using $.getJSON in IE7 that turned out to be an issue with something else entirely.

If you’re using $(el).css or .animate with JSON, make sure you’ve terminated all items correctly and don’t have any hanging commas left over:

This case sent me particularly crazy as I was also dealing with an actual JSON request in the same general vicinity that I’d validated a bunch of times and seemed perfect.

Note to self: Before you go down the whitespace and text encoding rabbithole next time, make sure you’re actually checking the right JSON!