Adding/removing items from a JavaScript object wit

Question

I have a Javascript object as follows:

var data = {items: [
    {id: "1", name: "Snatch", type: "crime"},
    {id: "2", name: "Witches of Eastwick", type: "comedy"},
    {id: "3", name: "X-Men", type: "action"},
    {id: "4", name: "Ordinary People", type: "drama"},
    {id: "5", name: "Billy Elliot", type: "drama"},
    {id: "6", name: "Toy Story", type: "children"}
]};

If I wanted to add/remove items to this list, how would I go about it using jQuery? The client wants this list to be dynamically modifiable.

Answer 1

First off, your quoted code is not JSON. Your code is JavaScript object literal notation. JSON is a subset of that designed for easier parsing.

Your code defines an object (data) containing an array (items) of objects (each with an id, name, and type).

You don't need or want jQuery for this, just JavaScript.

Adding an item:

data.items.push(
    {id: "7", name: "Douglas Adams", type: "comedy"}
);

That adds to the end. See below for adding in the middle.

Removing an item:

There are several ways. The splice method is the most versatile:

data.items.splice(1, 3); // Removes three items starting with the 2nd,
                         // ("Witches of Eastwick", "X-Men", "Ordinary People")

splice modifies the original array, and returns an array of the items you removed.

Adding in the middle:

splice actually does both adding and removing. The signature of the splice method is:

removed_items = arrayObject.splice(index, num_to_remove[, add1[, add2[, ...]]]);

• index - the index at which to start making changes
• num_to_remove - starting with that index, remove this many entries
• addN - ...and then insert these elements

So I can add an item in the 3rd position like this:

data.items.splice(2, 0,
    {id: "7", name: "Douglas Adams", type: "comedy"}
);

What that says is: Starting at index 2, remove zero items, and then insert this following item. The result looks like this:

var data = {items: [
    {id: "1", name: "Snatch", type: "crime"},
    {id: "2", name: "Witches of Eastwick", type: "comedy"},
    {id: "7", name: "Douglas Adams", type: "comedy"},     // <== The new item
    {id: "3", name: "X-Men", type: "action"},
    {id: "4", name: "Ordinary People", type: "drama"},
    {id: "5", name: "Billy Elliot", type: "drama"},
    {id: "6", name: "Toy Story", type: "children"}
]};

You can remove some and add some at once:

data.items.splice(1, 3,
    {id: "7", name: "Douglas Adams", type: "comedy"},
    {id: "8", name: "Dick Francis", type: "mystery"}
);

...which means: Starting at index 1, remove three entries, then add these two entries. Which results in:

var data = {items: [
    {id: "1", name: "Snatch", type: "crime"},
    {id: "7", name: "Douglas Adams", type: "comedy"},
    {id: "8", name: "Dick Francis", type: "mystery"},
    {id: "4", name: "Ordinary People", type: "drama"},
    {id: "5", name: "Billy Elliot", type: "drama"},
    {id: "6", name: "Toy Story", type: "children"}
]};

Answer 2

Adding an object in a json array

var arrList = [];
var arr = {};   
arr['worker_id'] = worker_id;
arr['worker_nm'] = worker_nm;
arrList.push(arr);

Removing an object from a json

It worker for me.

  arrList = $.grep(arrList, function (e) { 

        if(e.worker_id == worker_id) {
            return false;
        } else {
            return true;
        }
    });

It returns an array without that object.

Hope it helps.

Answer 3

Splice is good, everyone explain splice so I didn't explain it. You can also use delete keyword in JavaScript, it's good. You can use $.grep also to manipulate this using jQuery.

The jQuery Way :

data.items = jQuery.grep(
                data.items, 
                function (item,index) { 
                  return item.id !=  "1"; 
                });

DELETE Way:

delete data.items[0]

For Adding PUSH is better the splice, because splice is heavy weighted function. Splice create a new array , if you have a huge size of array then it may be troublesome. delete is sometime useful, after delete if you look for the length of the array then there is no change in length there. So use it wisely.

Answer 4

If you are using jQuery you can use the extend function to add new items.

var olddata = {"fruit":{"apples":10,"pears":21}};

var newdata = {};
newdata['vegetables'] = {"carrots": 2, "potatoes" : 5};

$.extend(true, olddata, newdata);

This will generate:

{"fruit":{"apples":10,"pears":21}, "vegetables":{"carrots":2,"potatoes":5}};

Answer 5

Well, it's just a javascript object, so you can manipulate data.items just like you would an ordinary array. If you do:

data.items.pop();

your items array will be 1 item shorter.

Answer 6

That's not JSON at all, it's just Javascript objects. JSON is a text representation of data, that uses a subset of the Javascript syntax.

The reason that you can't find any information about manipulating JSON using jQuery is because jQuery has nothing that can do that, and it's generally not done at all. You manipulate the data in the form of Javascript objects, and then turn it into a JSON string if that is what you need. (jQuery does have methods for the conversion, though.)

What you have is simply an object that contains an array, so you can use all the knowledge that you already have. Just use data.items to access the array.

For example, to add another item to the array using dynamic values:

// The values to put in the item
var id = 7;
var name = "The usual suspects";
var type = "crime";
// Create the item using the values
var item = { id: id, name: name, type: type };
// Add the item to the array
data.items.push(item);