> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/1.4/pipeline/parsers/json.md).

# JSON

The JSON parser is the simplest option: if the original log source is a JSON map string, it will take it structure and convert it directly to the internal binary representation.

A simple configuration that can be found in the default parsers configuration file, is the entry to parse Docker log files (when the tail input plugin is used):

```python
[PARSER]
    Name        docker
    Format      json
    Time_Key    time
    Time_Format %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S %z
```

The following log entry is a valid content for the parser defined above:

```javascript
{"key1": 12345, "key2": "abc", "time": "2006-07-28T13:22:04Z"}
```

After processing, it internal representation will be:

```
[1154103724, {"key1"=>12345, "key2"=>"abc"}]
```

The time has been converted to Unix timestamp (UTC) and the map reduced to each component of the original message.


---

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