I have an array of strings that describe the parent/child relationship by being delimited with dashes. So, if Bob's boss was Jim and Jim's boss was Fred, Bob's entry in the array would be "Fred-Jim-Bob" and Jim's entry would be "Fred-Jim."
I don't have the ability to change the way the data is coming in so I was looking for help as far as the best way of turning these values into JSON similar to this:
{
"name": "Fred",
"children": {
"name": "Jim",
"children": {
"name": "Bob"
}
}
}
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
var input = ["Fred-Jim-Bob", "Fred-Jim", "Fred-Thomas-Rob", "Fred"];
var output = [];
for (var i = 0; i < input.length; i++) {
var chain = input[i].split("-");
var currentNode = output;
for (var j = 0; j < chain.length; j++) {
var wantedNode = chain[j];
var lastNode = currentNode;
for (var k = 0; k < currentNode.length; k++) {
if (currentNode[k].name == wantedNode) {
currentNode = currentNode[k].children;
break;
}
}
// If we couldn't find an item in this list of children
// that has the right name, create one:
if (lastNode == currentNode) {
var newNode = currentNode[k] = {name: wantedNode, children: []};
currentNode = newNode.children;
}
}
}
output JSONifies as:
[{
"name": "Fred",
"children": [{
"name": "Jim",
"children": [{
"name": "Bob",
"children": []
}]
}, {
"name": "Thomas",
"children": [{
"name": "Rob",
"children": []
}]
}]
}]