JSON.stringify doesn't work with normal Javascript array

JavaScript arrays are designed to hold data with numeric indexes. You can add named properties to them because an array is a type of object (and this can be useful when you want to store metadata about an array which holds normal, ordered, numerically indexed data), but that isn't what they are designed for.

The JSON array data type cannot have named keys on an array.

When you pass a JavaScript array to JSON.stringify the named properties will be ignored.

If you want named properties, use an Object, not an Array.

const test = {}; // Object
test.a = 'test';
test.b = []; // Array
test.b.push('item');
test.b.push('item2');
test.b.push('item3');
test.b.item4 = "A value"; // Ignored by JSON.stringify
const json = JSON.stringify(test);
console.log(json);

Nice explanation and example above. I found this (JSON.stringify() array bizarreness with Prototype.js) to complete the answer. Some sites implements its own toJSON with JSONFilters, so delete it.

if(window.Prototype) {
    delete Object.prototype.toJSON;
    delete Array.prototype.toJSON;
    delete Hash.prototype.toJSON;
    delete String.prototype.toJSON;
}

it works fine and the output of the test:

console.log(json);

Result:

"{"a":"test","b":["item","item2","item3"]}"

I posted a fix for this here

You can use this function to modify JSON.stringify to encode arrays, just post it near the beginning of your script (check the link above for more detail):

// Upgrade for JSON.stringify, updated to allow arrays
(function(){
    // Convert array to object
    var convArrToObj = function(array){
        var thisEleObj = new Object();
        if(typeof array == "object"){
            for(var i in array){
                var thisEle = convArrToObj(array[i]);
                thisEleObj[i] = thisEle;
            }
        }else {
            thisEleObj = array;
        }
        return thisEleObj;
    };
    var oldJSONStringify = JSON.stringify;
    JSON.stringify = function(input){
        if(oldJSONStringify(input) == '[]')
            return oldJSONStringify(convArrToObj(input));
        else
            return oldJSONStringify(input);
    };
})();