---
page_title: jsonencode function reference
description: The `jsonencode` function encodes a given value as a JSON string.
---

# `jsonencode` Function

`jsonencode` encodes a given value to a string using JSON syntax.

The JSON encoding is defined in [RFC 7159](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159).

This function maps
[Packer language values](/packer/docs/templates/hcl_templates/expressions#types-and-values)
to JSON values in the following way:

| Packer type   | JSON type |
| ------------- | --------- |
| `string`      | String    |
| `number`      | Number    |
| `bool`        | Bool      |
| `list(...)`   | Array     |
| `set(...)`    | Array     |
| `tuple(...)`  | Array     |
| `map(...)`    | Object    |
| `object(...)` | Object    |
| Null value    | `null`    |

Since the JSON format cannot fully represent all of the Packer language
types, passing the `jsonencode` result to `jsondecode` will not produce an
identical value, but the automatic type conversion rules mean that this is
rarely a problem in practice.

## Examples

```shell-session
> jsonencode({"hello"="world"})
{"hello":"world"}
```

## Related Functions

- [`jsondecode`](/packer/docs/templates/hcl_templates/functions/encoding/jsondecode) performs the opposite operation, _decoding_
  a JSON string to obtain its represented value.
