> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://cortex-docs.paloaltonetworks.com/cortex-xdr-3.x/cortex-xdr-3.x-documentation/cortex-xdr-xql/functions/to_json_string.md).

# to\_json\_string

**Syntax**

```programlisting
to_json_string(<data type>)
```

**Description**

The `to_json_string()` function accepts all data types, such as integers, booleans, strings, and returns it as a JSON formatted string. This function always returns a string. When the input is an object or an array, the function returns a JSON formatted string of the input. When the input string is a string, it returns the string as is. You can then use the JSON formatted string or string returned by this function with the [json\_extract](/cortex-xdr-3.x/cortex-xdr-3.x-documentation/cortex-xdr-xql/functions/json_extract.md), [json\_extract\_array](/cortex-xdr-3.x/cortex-xdr-3.x-documentation/cortex-xdr-xql/functions/json_extract_array.md), and [json\_extract\_scalar](/cortex-xdr-3.x/cortex-xdr-3.x-documentation/cortex-xdr-xql/functions/json_extract_scalar.md) functions.

**Examples**

Return the `action_file_device_info` field in JSON format.

```programlisting
dataset = xdr_data 
| fields action_file_device_info as afdi
| filter afdi != null  
| alter the_json_string = to_json_string(afdi) 
| limit 10
```


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