My question was: "How do I differentiate between the different paths in input2?" In a JSON object, the colon separates the key and value pair. In this example, it also represented accessing a nested key-value pair. Example: "name" : {"firstName":"John", "lastName: "Smith"} Given the path "name:firstName", I would return "John". When splitting a string into tokens, you split the string at a specific delimiter (often a comma, or space) But in this problem, the colon was treated as the string delimiter, AND the character denoting nested key-value pairs. If my string path was "name:firstName:name" I would not be able to tell if the string should be parsed, "name:firstName, name" or "name, firstName:name" or "name, firstName, name" ...because the colon is used for multiple purposes. I merely wanted clarification on how to parse the string, and if we could use a different delimiter. Ms. Gao didn't understand my question however or ask me to rephrase, instead opting to slander my abilities and accuse me of lying about my skillset.