PrototypeJS version 1.6.0.2 Overrides JSON.parse and JSON.stringify and breaks socket.io functionality

Question

Basically, socket.io uses nativeJSON to enconde and decode packets, and my problem is that I am obliged to use this version of prototype which changes JSON behaviour. When I should get in the server something like:

socket.on('event', function (a, b, c), I get socket.on('event', function ([a, b, c], undefined, undefined).

One solution is to comment this lines on json.js:

/* socket.io-client/lib/json.js
if (nativeJSON && nativeJSON.parse){
    return exports.JSON = {
      parse: nativeJSON.parse
    , stringify: nativeJSON.stringify
    };
  }
*/

but this change affects performance seriously.

Is there a way to recover native JSON functionality? Would it be possible to create a hidden iframe just to clone the JSON object to restore the old functionality?

Answer 1

One solution is to kill Prototype's toJSON() extension methods:

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

Then you should be able to use the browser's native JSON.parse/stringify methods without issue.