This is a bit OT, in that it is more a js question.  But the solution has
to fit in under the manifest ver 2 limitations, so somebody here may know
how.

In an app (chrome notebook) under manifest v1 I had some code like this:

var str = '[ {a:"xx", b:"yy",...}, {a:"pp", b:"qq", ...}, ... {...} ]';
 //this is a synthesized (parsed) string of values obtained from a web
search
var AA = [];

eval ( 'AA=' +str +';' );  //to get the array of lists into AA

How can the above be re-coded to avoid using eval?  If I split the str with
',' it would split the list items too.  Any suggestions?