Alexa Custom Skill Development

JSON

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a language independent,  lightweight data-interchange format. It is self-describing and easy to understand.Hence its is an easy-to-use alternative to XML. The JSON format is syntactically identical to the code for creating JavaScript objects.

var employees = [
    {"firstName":"Albert", "lastName":"Einstein"},
    {"firstName":"Steve", "lastName":"Jobs"},
    {"firstName":"Bill","lastName": "Gates"}
];


// The JavaScript function JSON.parse(text) can be used to 
// convert a JSON text into a JavaScript object:


// returns Albert Einstein
employees[0].firstName + " " + employees[0].lastName;

// alternate way 
employees[0]["firstName"] + " " + employees[0]["lastName"];

// To extract key names
var keys = [];
for ( var k in employees[0] ) {
  keys.push( k ); 
  // the property name
}

// To extract key names in modern browser
var keys = Object.keys( employees[0] );

// returns firstName
keys[0];

// Based on the above extract name
// returns Albert
employees[0][keys[0]];

//

SSML

SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language)  is a markup language that provides a standard way to mark up text for the generation of synthetic speech. The Alexa Skills Kit supports a subset of the tags defined in the SSML specification.

Provide the marked-up text in the outputSpeech property, but set the type to SSML instead of PlainText. Use the ssml property instead of text for the marked-up text:

"outputSpeech": {
    "type": "SSML",
    "ssml": "<speak>This output speech uses SSML.</speak>"
}

The SSML must be wrapped within tags. For example:

<speak>
    Here is a number <w role="ivona:VBD">read</w> 
    as a cardinal number: 
    <say-as interpret-as="cardinal">12345</say-as>. 
    Here is a word spelled out: 
    <say-as interpret-as="spell-out">hello</say-as>. 
</speak>