Help with JSONItems

General
1

I have a JSON string looking like this:

{
“appDesc”: {
“description”: “App description.”,
“message”: “Say hi”
},
“appName”: {
“description”: “App Name.”,
“message”: “HelloWorld”
}
}

I’ve read this from a file, and have read the key “appName” from a different file. I need to find the “appName” item in this JSON data, then find the “message” item inside it. Here’s what I’ve tried:

      masterJSON = new JSONItem(jsonData)
      appNameJSON = masterJSON(nameKey, nil)
      appName = DefineEncoding(appNameJSON.Lookup("message", ""), Encodings.UTF8)

(nameKey is a string variable obtained elsewhere, appName is also a string. The masterJSON and appNameJSON items are JSONItem variables.)

Everything seems to be working, except for one problem… in some cases, the nameKey has a different case than what’s in the JSON data. For example, I may be given a key “APPNAME”, and have to match that to the “appName” key in the JSON data. In this case, my code fails.

I have also tried iterating over all items in masterJSON, using masterJSON.Name. I convert both nameKey and the string returned from masterJSON.Name to lowercase, and if they match, I call masterJSON.Child with the same index… and get on OutOfBoundsException on that call. No idea why.

Any tips? How do I do this?

2

I think this is the right idea, but you don’t have to convert to lowercase, and you can use Value instead of Child.

Off the top of my head:

dim names() as string = masterJSON.Names
dim child as JSONItem
dim pos as integer = names.IndexOf( appName )
if pos <> -1 then
  child = masterJSON.Value( names( pos ) )
end if

if child <> nil then …
3

BTW, while this will work, if Names contains both “appName” and “APPNAME”, you will get whichever comes up first in the array.

4

Well, that worked perfectly, thanks!

I’ve gotta say, though, this JSONItem class needs a bit of work… it’s very unintuitive and quirky!

5

That’s not a concern in this case… there will only be one item with that name in this JSON data.

6

[quote=124610:@Thomas Reed]Well, that worked perfectly, thanks!

I’ve gotta say, though, this JSONItem class needs a bit of work… it’s very unintuitive and quirky![/quote]

I’ve been doing a lot of work with the JSONItem class recently and I’ve come to think of it as very intuitive since you can use it as either an array or case-sensitive Dictionary, both of which are familiar concepts.

What are you finding unintuitive?