Looping through nested arrays with creating new array from nested items

Question

I have written this function but I am not so proud on it. I could use some help refactoring it.

Would recursion improve my code?

Data sample.

{ 
 "Name":"test2",
 "DepartmentUnitId":"test",
 "ParentDepartmentUnitId":"test",
 "NestedDepartments":[ 
 { 
 "Name":"test2",
 "DepartmentUnitId":"test",
 "ParentDepartmentUnitId":"test",
 "NestedDepartments":[]
 },
 { 
 "Name":"test2",
 "DepartmentUnitId":"test",
 "ParentDepartmentUnitId":"test",
 "NestedDepartments":[]
 }
 ]
}

JS:

function indentDepartments(departments, model) {
 var indentedDepartments = [];
 _.each(departments, function (department) {
 indentedDepartments.push(buildDepartment(department, 0));
 _.each(department.NestedDepartments, function (lv1Department) {
 indentedDepartments.push(buildDepartment(lv1Department, 1));
 _.each(lv1Department.NestedDepartments, function (lv2Department) {
 indentedDepartments.push(buildDepartment(lv2Department, 2));
 });
 });
 });
 function buildDepartment(data, level) {
 department = _.pick(data, 'DepartmentUnitId', 'ParentDepartmentUnitId');
 name = _.times(level, function () { return '-'; }).join('') + data.Name;
 _.extend(department, { Name: name });
 return department;
 }
 model.parentDepartments(indentedDepartments);
}

Edit: Nested array can go 2 levels deep, but I wouldn't mind making this function more scalable.

• jfriend00: Please show a sample of the data structure you are iterating. Also, is there a limit to how deep you want to iterate or do you just want to keep going as long as there are NestedDepartments?
• neowinian: @jfriend00 I have edited OP, data is structured to go 2 levels deep with nested arrays.
• Dan: Could you explain what your function is meant to do (in a bit more detail, your title is slightly vague) or provide a test case?
• neowinian: @DanPantry sorry for confusion I thought I explained it good :) Function is accepting array and each item of the array potentially can have nested array. I want to flatten those arrays but to specify on which level of hierarchy the element is added.

Answer 1

You could indeed create a recursive function to collect each level of departments, keeping going as long as there are nested departments:

function indentDepartments(departments, model) {
 model.parentDepartments(doIndentDepartments(departments, 0));
 // called recursively to indent each level of department
 function doIndentDepartments(departments, level) {
 // indent departments at current level
 var departments = _.map(departments, function(department) {
 return buildDepartment(department, level);
 });
 // indent nested departments
 if (typeof departments.NestedDepartments != 'undefined') {
 departments.push.apply(departments, doIndentDepartments(departments.NestedDepartments, level +1));
 }
 return departments;
 }
 function buildDepartment(data, level) {
 department = _.pick(data, 'DepartmentUnitId', 'ParentDepartmentUnitId');
 name = _.times(level, function () { return '-'; }).join('') + data.Name;
 _.extend(department, { Name: name });
 return department;
 }
}