Disclaimer: I don’t know what I’m doing I want to, as they say, in the UK, “come to grips” with nested arrays and then, secondarily, importing and exporting to and from JSON.
I have an actual use case in front of me. I could turn this over to one of the brainiacs on our team (Andre, David) but then I won’t learn anything. So I come again with a begging bowl, asking in simple terms and then perhaps newbies lurking will also gain from this. OK: I need to take a functional specification/screens mocked up on Indesign and turn it into a “map” that describes the cards and elements on the cards. These cards comprise a hero image at the top, and a series of small groups below which act as links/buttons. These links in turn form a big group that can be scrolled and used to trigger navigation to other cards/modules in the app. I start simply by using Excel, filling in a table, export to tab-delimited data, the attempting to parse that data into a nested multi-level array. This is a snippet, where the first column is the card, the second column is the group type, then we have the “params” related to each of the link/button/groups (label, background image path, system message type, target and orientation of the destination card. home hero-image Portals to Saivite Hinduism img/portal-heros/home-hero.jpg home link Gems of\nWisdom img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-gems_thm.jpg goModuleStack gems-module portrait home link Surprise\nMe img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-surprise_thm.jpg goPortalCard surprise-portal portrait home link Look img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-look_thm.jpg goPortalCard look-portal portrait home link Listen img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-listen_thm.jpg goPortalCard listen-portal portrait home link Read img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-read_thm.jpg goPortalCard read-portal portrait home link Practice img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-practice_thm.jpg goPortalCard practice-portal portrait home link Our\nWebsite img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-website_thm.jpg goPortalCard website-portal portrait home link Fun \n Games img/portal-link-thumbs/home/home-fun_thm.jpg goPortalCard fun-portal portrait surprise-portal hero-image Surprise Me img/portal-heros/surprise-hero.jpg surprise-portal link Verses from\nthe Vedas img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/vedas-verses_thm.jpg fetchTextReader http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-vedas portrait surprise-portal link Tirukural\nCouplets img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/tirukural-verses_thm.jpg fetchTextReader http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-kural portrait surprise-portla link Inspired\nAudio Talks img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/talks_thm.jpg playAudio http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-talk portrait surprise-portal link Songs\nAnd Chants img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/songs_thm.jpg playAudio http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-some portrait surprise-portal link Sacred\nArt img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/art_thm.jpg displayImage http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-art portrait surprise-portal link Gurudeva's\nDarshan img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/gurudeva_thm.jpg displayImage http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-gurudeva portrait surprise-portal link Bodhinatha's\nDarshan img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/bodhinatha_thm.jpg displayImage http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-bodhinatha portrait surprise-portal link Video\nWorld img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/video_thm.jpg playVideo http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-video landscape surprise-portal link Five Inspired Quotes img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/trilogy-quotes_thm.jpg fetchTextReader http://www.himalayanacademy.com/sivasiva-api/random-trilogy portrait read-portal hero-image Read, Learn, Study img/portal-heros/read-hero.jpg read-portal link Frequently\nAsked\nQuestions img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/faq_thm.jpg goModuleStack faq-module portrait read-portal link Gurudeva's\nSpiritual\nToolbox img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/gr-toolbox_thm.jpg goModuleStack gr-toolbox-module portrait read-portal link All Our\nOn-Line\nBooks img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/publications_thm.jpg browseWeb http://www.himalayanacademy.com/readlearn/books landscape read-portal link Lesson of\nthe Day img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/daily-lesson_thm.jpg browseWeb http://www.himalayanacademy.com/livespiritually/become-student/todays-lesson portrait read-portal link Path to Siva:\nA Catechism\nfor Youth img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/path-to-siva_thm.jpg goModuleStack path-to-siva-module portrait read-portal link A Character\nBuilding\nWorkbook img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/character-building_thm.jpg goModuleStack character-building-module portrait read-portal link Educational\nInsights img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/edu-insights_thm.jpg browseWeb http://www.himalayanacademy.com/site/search/file_id/_ei portrait read-portal link Hindu\nTimeline img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/timeline_thm.jpg browseWeb http://www.himalayanacademy.com/book/dancing-with-siva/527 portrait Now I want to load this into a nested array and run JsonExport. I go this far: local tGroupCounter, aPortalLinks on mouseUp # clear the array put empty into aPortalLinks answer "Use Data Input path?" with "No" or "Yes" if it is "no" then answer file "Choose your tab delimited file" with "OK" put it into fld "dataInput" end if put url ("file:" & fld "dataInput") into tData set the itemdel to tab put "SivaSiva" into aPortalLinks["tStack"] put "0" into tGroupCounter repeat for each line x in tData put item 1 of x into aPortalLinks["stack"]["tCard"] put item 2 of x into tGroupType if tGroupType = "link" then add 1 to tGroupCounter put (tGroupType & tGroupCounter) into tGroupType end if put tGroupType into aPortalLinks["tStack"]["tCard"]["tGroup"] put item 3 of x into aPortalLinks["tStack"]["tCard"]["tGroup"]["label"] put item 4 of x into aPortalLinks["tStack"]["tCard"]["tGroup"]["imgPath"] put item 5 of x into aPortalLinks["tStack"]["tCard"]["tGroup"]["message"] put item 6 of x into aPortalLinks["tStack"]["tCard"]["tGroup"]["target"] put item 7 of x into aPortalLinks["tStack"]["tCard"]["tGroup"]["orientation"] end repeat put JsonExport(aPortalLinks) end mouseUp If we exit the repeat loop entirely immediately I get this output {"tStack": "SivaSiva”} If I let it run… I get this output which is from the very last line in the data: { "stack": { "tCard": "read-portal" }, "tStack": { “ tCard": { "tGroup": { "imgPath": "img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/timeline_thm.jpg", "message": "browseWeb", "label": "Hindu\\nTimeline", "target": " http://www.himalayanacademy.com/book/dancing-with-siva/527";, "orientation": "portrait" } } } } Instead of building up the array… somehow my method is wiping out that “higher dimensions” of the array. Leaving us with a single element instead of elements for each line of the inputData This has nothing to do with the JsonExport library.. I can see this happening in the variable watcher before we ever get to the JsonExport function. Setting a break point at the top of the script and stepping in the debugger, the variable Watcher shows: aPortalLinks tStack —> SivaSiva # so far so good... Then stepping to next line aPortalLinks tStack > # now empty? Why? tCard > home Then stepping to next line aPortalLinks tStack > tCard > # now empty? Why? tGroup > link1 Then stepping to next line aPortalLinks tStack > tCard > tGroup > # now empty? Why? imgPath > img/portal-link-thumbs/surprise-portal/timeline_thm.jpg Message >browseWeb Label > Hindu\\nTimeline Target > http://www.himalayanacademy.com/book/dancing-with-siva/527 Orientation > portrait And in the end… only the last line is output to Json, with the last iteration of params for the group intact. What am I doing wrong? BR (8.0.0 RC1) Secondary issue: we need to represent “CR” kin the input data… I used the \n as prescribed by JSON rules… … but the JsonExport is escaping the backslash input: firstLine\nSecondLine output: firstLine\\nSecondline Anyway to avoid this? Because if we need to run a JsonIMport later… I think \\n will break it and not be interpreted correction as a new line - CR. (TBD) BR _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
