CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptjquerystringobject
Ken Palmer
Ken Palmer

Reputation: 2445

With JavaScript or jQuery, how can I convert a name-value pair string into an object?

I have a name value pair stored as a string that I would like to convert to an object in jQuery or JavaScript. Here is an example of that pair.

{'auto':false, 'itemAWidth':20, 'itemBWidth':20, 'marginLeft':0, 'marginRight':0, 'maximumWidth':0, 'propW':5, 'propX':5, 'propY':null, 'propZ':null}

This is being stored as a string. How can I convert this to a proper object? Some of my unsuccessful attempts appear below.

convertValuePairsToObject = function (pairs) {

  var outObject = {};
  var nodes = pairs.split(',');
  for (var node in nodes) {

  }

  //alert(pairs);
  //return jQuery.parseJSON('"' + pairs + '"');
  //      var outObject = {};
  //      //var nodes = pairs.split(','), dest = outObject;
  //      var  = pairs.split(',');
  //      return outObject;
}

When I attempted to use the jQuery.parseJSON() function, the code returned a very long string that started like this.

{'0':'{', '1':''', '2':'0', '3':''', '4':':', '5':''', '6':'{', '7':''', '8':',', '9':' ', '10':''', '11':'1', '12':''', '13':':', '14':''', '15':''', '16':''', '17':',', '18':' ', '19':''', '20':'2', '21':''', '22':':', '23':''', '24':'a', '25':''', '26':',', '27':' ', '28':''', '29':'3', '30':''', '31':':', '32':''', '33':'u', '34':''', '35':',', '36':' ', '37':''', '38':'4', '39':''', '40':':', '41':''', '42':'t', '43':''', '44':',', '45':' ', '46':''', '47':'5', '48':''', '49':':', '50':''', '51':'o',

=====================================

Edit Below 10:51 AM 1/4/2013

=====================================

So I tried the suggestions you both offered, and have this.

  convertObjectToString = function (obj) {
      return JSON.stringify(obj);
      //      var str = '';
      //      for (var p in obj) {
      //         if (obj.hasOwnProperty(p)) { str += "'" + p + "':" + formatValue(obj[p]) + ", "; }
      //      }
      //      if (str.length > 0) {
      //         str = String(str).substring(0, str.length - 2); // Trim trailing comma
      //         str = '{' + str + '}';
      //      }
      //      return str;
   }

   convertValuePairsToObject = function (pairs) {
      return jQuery.parseJSON('[' + pairs + ']');
   }

But now when convertValuePairsToObject executes, the code pre-pends the name value pairs with this:

{"0":

And if I repeatedly trigger that function, it will keep pre-pending the above to the string, like so:

{"0":{"0":{"0":

I don't need that index identifier of zero. How can I eliminate that?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2865

Answers (2)

Nope
Nope

Reputation: 22339

assuming you mean that you get the string like this:

"{'auto':false, 'itemAWidth':20, 'itemBWidth':20, 'marginLeft':0, 'marginRight':0, 'maximumWidth':0, 'propW':5, 'propX':5, 'propY':null, 'propZ':null}"

Then one option would be to use eval like this:

var pairs = "{'auto':false, 'itemAWidth':20, 'itemBWidth':20, 'marginLeft':0, 'marginRight':0, 'maximumWidth':0, 'propW':5, 'propX':5, 'propY':null, 'propZ':null}"

var foo = eval("(" + pairs + ")");

foo is now the actual object and not the string.

Executing console.log(foo); will result in the object tree in the debugger not a string.

DEMO - get the object from the string

Alternatively you can convert your object in a string into a proper JSON object and then back into an object using JSON.Parse as mentioned by others.

Upvotes: 0

DigitalZebra
DigitalZebra

Reputation: 41553

You need to replace the single quotes with double quotes:

var json = "{'auto':false, 'itemAWidth':20, 'itemBWidth':20, 'marginLeft':0, 'marginRight':0, 'maximumWidth':0, 'propW':5, 'propX':5, 'propY':null, 'propZ':null}".replace(/'/g, '"')

Then, you can use JSON.parse:

JSON.parse(json)

Upvotes: 3

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