JSONObject.toString: how NOT to escape slashes

I need to send a date in JSON. The date string should look like this:

"2013/5/15"

Instead , JSONObject.toString escapes it as follows:

"2013\ /5\ /15"

I understand that this is done to allow json strings inside scripts tags, as this question explains: JSON: why are forward slashes escaped?

But in my case I don't need it. In fact the server is returning an error. The server is not dealing with this and I can't fix the server, so I must fix it in the mobile client code.

I could do a String.replace after serializing it, but what if I actually wanted to include the "\ /" string in any other part of the JSON?

Is there a way to serialize a JSON object without escaping slashes? (If possible, without escaping anything)

Thanks in advance.

I finally opted for the quick and dirty trick of replacing the escaped slashes in the serialized string before sending it to the server. Luckily, JSONObject also escapes backslashes, so i must also unscape them. Now if I wanted to send "\ /" intentionally the escaped string would be "\\/" and the result of replacing is the original string as intended.

jsonObjSend.toString().replace("\\\\","")

Worked for me. A bit dirty trick but seems no other solution.

That behavior is hard-coded into JSONStringer.java, see method private void string(String value), line 302+.

It should be possible to copy class JSONStringer and implement your own version of value(Object) (line 227+). Then implement your own version of JSONObject.toString() in a utility class and use your own JSONStringer instead of the original.

EDIT: Subclassing JSONStringer won't be easy because value() calls a private method beforeValue() that cannot be accessed.

I had a similar problem with JSONObject "put" when dealing with data for an image that was encoded into a adat Uri "data:image/png;base64,.....". The put function would add another slash to change the format to "data:image/png;base64,.....". It seems that the source of the problem is a string value check within the JSONObject "put" function that adds the extra slashs. One could maybe overload the function or extend the class but I found the easiest way is to add a unique string such as guid and then replace that guid with your Uri string after the calling the toString() function of your JSONObject.

JSONObject userJson = new JSONObject(); 
String myimageUri = "data:image/png;base64,XXXDATAXXX";
userJson.put("imageUri", "b0c8f13d-48b1-46b4-af28-4e2d8004a6f8");
userJson.toString().replace("b0c8f13d-48b1-46b4-af28-4e2d8004a6f8", myimageUri);