JavaScript recursive search in JSON object

Question

I am trying to return a specific node in a JSON object structure which looks like this

{
    "id":"0",
    "children":[
        {
            "id":"1",
            "children":[...]
        },
        {
            "id":"2",
            "children":[...]
        }
    ]
}

So it's a tree-like child-parent relation. Every node has a unique ID. I'm trying to find a specific node like this

function findNode(id, currentNode) {

    if (id == currentNode.id) {
        return currentNode;
    } else {
        currentNode.children.forEach(function (currentChild) {            
            findNode(id, currentChild);
        });
    }
}  

I execute the search for example by findNode("10", rootNode). But even though the search finds a match the function always returns undefined. I have a bad feeling that the recursive function doesn't stop after finding the match and continues running an finally returns undefined because in the latter recursive executions it doesn't reach a return point, but I'm not sure how to fix this.

Please help!

Answer 1

function findNode(id, currentNode) {

    if (id == currentNode.id) {
        return currentNode;
    } else {
        var result;
        currentNode.children.forEach(function(node){
            if(node.id == id){
                result = node;
                return;
            }
        });
        return (result ? result : "No Node Found");
    }
}
console.log(findNode("10", node));

This method will return the node if it present in the node list. But this will loop through all the child of a node since we can't successfully break the forEach flow. A better implementation would look like below.

function findNode(id, currentNode) {

    if (id == currentNode.id) {
        return currentNode;
    } else {
        var result;
        for(var index in currentNode.children){
            var node = currentNode.children[index];
            if(node.id == id)
                return node;
            findNode(id, node);
        }
        return "No Node Present";
    }
}
console.log(findNode("1", node));

Answer 2

When searching recursively, you have to pass the result back by returning it. You're not returning the result of findNode(id, currentChild), though.

function findNode(id, currentNode) {
    var i,
        currentChild,
        result;

    if (id == currentNode.id) {
        return currentNode;
    } else {

        // Use a for loop instead of forEach to avoid nested functions
        // Otherwise "return" will not work properly
        for (i = 0; i < currentNode.children.length; i += 1) {
            currentChild = currentNode.children[i];

            // Search in the current child
            result = findNode(id, currentChild);

            // Return the result if the node has been found
            if (result !== false) {
                return result;
            }
        }

        // The node has not been found and we have no more options
        return false;
    }
}

Answer 3

I use the following

var searchObject = function (object, matchCallback, currentPath, result, searched) {
    currentPath = currentPath || '';
    result = result || [];
    searched = searched || [];
    if (searched.indexOf(object) !== -1 && object === Object(object)) {
        return;
    }
    searched.push(object);
    if (matchCallback(object)) {
        result.push({path: currentPath, value: object});
    }
    try {
        if (object === Object(object)) {
            for (var property in object) {
                if (property.indexOf("$") !== 0) {
                    //if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(object, property)) {
                        searchObject(object[property], matchCallback, currentPath + "." + property, result, searched);
                    //}
                }
            }
        }
    }
    catch (e) {
        console.log(object);
        throw e;
    }
    return result;
}

Then you can write

searchObject(rootNode, function (value) { return value != null && value != undefined && value.id == '10'; });

Now this works on circular references and you can match on any field or combination of fields you like by changing the matchCallback function.