bitcoin-cli commands like createrawtransaction not working with json on command line

Question

I am trying to create raw transaction using the createrawtransaction api on testnet using the Windows7 command line. I always get an "error parsing JSON":

C:\Users\amjad>bitcoin-cli -testnet createrawtransaction '[{ "txid" : "12b8e7ede
4992f4d30f93idj3085746951d945e39f40becebd7c290af8c2e7ad", "vout" : 0 }]' '{"mxh3
H416KCRoBDiweSESew5YJyAk1nxLrN": 0.025, "mkrzDhhZtzQm8zgckSs4fMNrvtNJ66zaFe": 0.
0245}'
error: Error parsing JSON:'[{

Does anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

When looking at the Bitcoin Developer Reference I saw an example where they use two additional '' before and after the list of inputs in comparison to you. For your input, I also got "Error parsing JSON", but with

bitcoin-cli -testnet createrawtransaction '''[{ "txid" : "12b8e7ede4992f4d30f93idj3085746951d945e39f40becebd7c290af8c2e7ad", "vout" : 0 }]''' '{"mxh3H416KCRoBDiweSESew5YJyAk1nxLrN": 0.025, "mkrzDhhZtzQm8zgckSs4fMNrvtNJ66zaFe": 0.0245}'

it parsed correctly.

Answer 2

Try rewriting your command to

bitcoin-cli -testnet createrawtransaction "[{\"txid\": \"12b8e7ede4992f4d30f93idj3085746951d945e39f40becebd7c290af8c2e7ad\", \"vout\": 0}]" "{\"mxh3H416KCRoBDiweSESew5YJyAk1nxLrN\": 0.025, \"mkrzDhhZtzQm8zgckSs4fMNrvtNJ66zaFe\": 0.0245}"

as suggested by this thread.