SQL Server 2016 introduces JSON data support, and in order to implement this support, four JSON functions have been added to allow the manipulation of JSON data:

• ISJSON: This checks whether an input string represents valid JSON data.
• JSON_VALUE: This extracts a scalar value from a JSON string.
• JSON_QUERY: This extracts a JSON fragment from the input JSON string for the specified JSON path.
• JSON_MODIFY: This modifies JSON data, updates the value of an existing property, adds a new element to an existing array, inserts a new property and its value, and deletes a property.
• OPENJSON: This provides a row set view over a JSON document. This table-value function converts JSON text into tabular data.

These functions will be explored in more detail in Chapter 5, JSON Support in SQL Server.