octobercms/october · error · Error

Broken JSON boolean body near ${str}

Error message

Broken JSON boolean body near ${str}

What it means

Part of the same lenient JSON scanner: getBody() dispatches on the first character of a value, so any unquoted token starting with 't' is assumed to be the boolean literal true. If the next four characters are not exactly "true" (e.g. "tru", "ture", "trueX", "test"), the parser throws this error. It fires during oc.parseJSON, i.e. whenever a data-* attribute like data-request-data is parsed.

Source

Thrown at modules/system/assets/js/framework.js:2226

            i++;
          } else if (str[i] === str[pos]) {
            body += str[pos];
            return {
              originLength: body.length,
              body
            };
          } else body += str[i];
        }
        throw new Error("Broken JSON string body near " + body);
      }
      if (str[pos] === "t") {
        if (str.indexOf("true", pos) === pos) {
          return {
            originLength: "true".length,
            body: "true"
          };
        }
        throw new Error("Broken JSON boolean body near " + str.substr(0, pos + 10));
      }
      if (str[pos] === "f") {
        if (str.indexOf("f", pos) === pos) {
          return {
            originLength: "false".length,
            body: "false"
          };
        }
        throw new Error("Broken JSON boolean body near " + str.substr(0, pos + 10));
      }
      if (str[pos] === "n") {
        if (str.indexOf("null", pos) === pos) {
          return {
            originLength: "null".length,
            body: "null"
          };
        }
        throw new Error("Broken JSON boolean body near " + str.substr(0, pos + 10));

View on GitHub (pinned to b608633a7e)

Solutions

1. Quote the string value if it is text: {filter: 'today'} or filter: "today".
2. If a boolean was intended, correct the spelling to the exact lowercase literal true.
3. Remember the rule: only bare true/false/null are allowed unquoted; everything else must be quoted.

Example fix

// before
<a data-request="onFilter" data-request-data="filter: today">Today</a>

// after
<a data-request="onFilter" data-request-data="{filter: 'today'}">Today</a>

// Allow only true/false/null unquoted; everything else must be quoted
function validBareTokens(value) {
    return value.replace(/'[^']*'|"[^"]*"/g, '').match(/:(?:\s*)(t(?!rue\b)|f(?!alse\b)|n(?!ull\b))\w/i) === null;
}

try { oc.parseJSON(raw); } catch (e) { /* treat attribute as absent and log */ console.warn('Ignoring malformed config:', e.message); }

When it happens

Trigger: An unquoted string value starting with t: data-request-data="filter: today" (wrapped to {filter: today}); a boolean typo such as {enabled: ture} or {flag: tru}; a capitalized boolean {ok: True} does NOT hit this branch (it falls through to the generic 'Broken JSON body' error) — only lowercase t-prefixed tokens do.

Common situations: Authors writing shorthand attribute configs (key: value) and forgetting quotes around text values; booleans mistyped; migrating jQuery-era inline options into data attributes.

Related errors

• Broken JSON string body near ${body}
• Broken JSON number body near ${body}
• Broken JSON ${str[pos] === "{" ? "object" : "array"} body ne
• Broken JSON body near ${str}
• Broken JSON boolean body near ${str}

AI-assisted analysis of octobercms/october@b608633a7e (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f57284f32c0953de. Report an issue: GitHub.