If you've never used JSON before, it will be useful to learn some basics before editing SLIDGE data directly.

• Data in JSON comes in several forms:
  • Numbers: These are just numbers
  • Strings: Text inside of “quotation marks”
  • Lists: A set of pieces of data, contained within [square brackets], listed in order, and separated by commas
  • Objects: A set of pieces of data, contained within {curly brackets}, paired with a key, and separated by commas. The key is like a label to help you find that data later.
• Notice that Lists and Objects contain pieces of data; these can include Lists and objects!
• All of this data can be looked up later by name or list number.

JSON is defined in RFC7493 and there's a nice summary at JSON.org

Here's a sample bit of JSON, with commentary added:

{                           <-Start of an object
   "name"   : "SLIDGE",     <-String of text paired with the key called "name"
   "number" : 1.0000,       <-Number paired with the key called "number"
   "list"   : [             <-Start of a List
               1,2,"A","B"  <-Several data in a List
              ]             <-End of a List
}                           <-End of an object

In JSON, new lines and extra spaces don't really do anything–I put each thing on a new line in order to make it readable and to give myself space to comment on it.

Hopefully, it's reasonably clear from the example above that there's an Object containing 3 pieces of data called “name”, “number”, and “list”.

The values assigned to “Name” and “Number” are just a name and a number, but “List” is where it gets interesting. “List” has a JSON List assigned to it, and there's multiple items inside. This is the key to achieving hierarchy.