CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptstringobjectpathkey
americanknight
americanknight

Reputation: 759

Get path of object and convert it to string in JavaScript

How could I generate a string of an object's path? For example, say I want to turn the following path (not its contents) into a string:

object = grandparent.children[2].children[4].whatever;

I need a function like this:

function stringifyPath(obj) {
    // somehow return "grandparent.children[2].children[4].whatever";
}

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1216

Answers (1)

jfriend00
jfriend00

Reputation: 707496

You simply can't do that in Javascript unless each object stores a reference to it's own parent and there's a known way to navigate children (like DOM nodes do).

This is because when you have an object embedded in another object (your parent/child relationship you speak of), it isn't really an object embedded in another. The child is an independent object and there's a reference to it in the parent. That same child could be stored in many different places. From Javascript's point of view, it doesn't actually have a parent. It's an object that many different things may have a reference to.

If each child object stored a reference to its own parent and there was a known way to walk children at any level, then it could be possible to write code to construct a path like you've said, but you'd have to be a lot more specific about what exactly these objects were and how you find out which child index a given object is.

For example, if these were DOM objects which meets both of the criteria (child contains reference to parent and there's a known way to navigate the children of any given object) and you wanted the root parent to be document.body, then you could do this:

function getSiblingPosition(obj) {
    var siblings = obj.parentNode.children;
    var elemCnt = 0;
    for (var i = 0; i < siblings.length; i++){
          if (siblings[i] === obj) {
            return elemCnt;
        } else {
            if (siblings[i].nodeType === 1) {
                ++elemCnt;
            }
        }
    }
}

function getPath(obj) {
    var path = "";
    while (obj && obj !== document.body) {
        var cnt = getSiblingPosition(obj);
        path = ".children[" + cnt + "]" + path;
        obj = obj.parentNode;
    }
    path = "document.body" + path;
    return path;
}

Working demo: https://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/8w9v8kpf/

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions