CODEWITHSUNDEEP
json
Andrew Gapare
Andrew Gapare

Reputation: 23

How to define a JSON schema for an object that has variable property names

I need to know how to define a JSON schema from the following example which seems to be an array but the items are variable, the list of header "numbers" goes on and on. It's a sample web response from the web service.

{
  "1453237200": {
    "ERRORS_OUT": null,
    "OCTETS_OUT": 229.727436984742,
    "PACKETS_OUT": 1.87192892826381,
    "DISCARDS_OUT": null,
    "SPEED": 2048000,
    "DISCARDS_IN": null,
    "PACKETS_IN": 1.83524341392888,
    "OCTETS_IN": 234.715031103113,
    "ERRORS_IN": null,
    "IFSTATUS": 1
  },
  "1453240800": {
    "ERRORS_OUT": null,
    "OCTETS_OUT": 75.3713074074074,
    "PACKETS_OUT": 0.418027777777778,
    "DISCARDS_OUT": null,
    "SPEED": 2048000,
    "DISCARDS_IN": null,
    "PACKETS_IN": 0.418567592592593,
    "OCTETS_IN": 78.1113824074074,
    "ERRORS_IN": null,
    "IFSTATUS": 1
  },
  "1453244400": {
    "ERRORS_OUT": null,
    "OCTETS_OUT": 75.2197541312908,
    "PACKETS_OUT": 0.414839344161437,
    "DISCARDS_OUT": null,
    "SPEED": 2048000,
    "DISCARDS_IN": null,
    "PACKETS_IN": 0.636818377014889,
    "OCTETS_IN": 108.708849501661,
    "ERRORS_IN": null,
    "IFSTATUS": 1
  }
}

Does anyone know how to handle this situation?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2571

Answers (1)

Brian Rogers
Brian Rogers

Reputation: 129797

This is not a JSON array, as it does not begin and end with [ and ]. It is a JSON object, where the property names can vary. In code, you would represent this with a Dictionary, Map or associative array, depending on which language you were using.

To define a schema for this, it seems you'll need to use the patternProperties construct with a regex to match the variable property names, as defined in section 5.4.4 of the JSON schema spec. Something like this:

{
    "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
    "type": "object",
    "patternProperties": 
    {
        "^[0-9]+$": 
        {
            "type": "object",
            "properties":
            {
                "OCTETS_OUT": { "type": "number" },
                "PACKETS_OUT": { "type": "number" },
                ...
            }
        }
    },
    "additionalProperties": false
}

The JSON schema documentation shows an example of using patternProperties here.

Upvotes: 3

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