JavaScript JSON

Working With JSON in JavaScript

We'll use older, more familiar, JS notation

Remember: JavaScript JSON objects are not strings

var json = {
    'meta': {'id': 'yo', 'stuff': 'njunk', 'user': '2929234823892389'},
    'entities': [{
        'id': '1',
        'url': 'www.facebook.com',
        'exampleArray': {
            'a': 'aa'
        }
    }, {
        'id': '2',
        'url': 'www.google.com',
        'exampleArray': {
            'b': 'bb'
        }
    }]
};

Give it a Name

The example above displays meta information

Also a list of (sub) JSON entities that we're going to put into some logic

We'll refer to them by this variable name:

var entities = json.entities;

Make a Helper

We now create a helper function to show a popup

('stringify' converts JSON objects to strings)

var alertJSON = function(json) {
    return alert(JSON.stringify(json));
};

Build the Logic

Our main logic iterates through the array searching for the id passed in as parameter b

We also want to make sure that the 'array' data field exists on the selected entity

The JSON array is non-null
(add a null-check if the situation were otherwise)

      
var fetchFromArrayById = function(a, b) {
    var entity;
    for (var key in a) {
        //Find the desired JSON object in the array
        if (a[key].id == b) {
            entity = a[key];
        }
    }
    //Check the JSON object for a field
    if ('exampleArray' in entity) {
        alertJSON(entity);
    }
};

Make the Call

Here we make our call to display the first object in the array:

      
fetchFromArrayById(entities, 1);