Convert JSON to a different format (nested json)

Question

This is really not a question. I was looking up this solution but couldn't find it anywhere. Thought of posting it here so it may save someone's time.

Here was my issue: I had a JSON coming from server which was not nested. Lets take example of Movies:

var movies = [
 {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"English", "year":"2012"},
 {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"French", "year":"2011"},
 {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"German", "year":"2013"}
];

Now effectively speaking, there is no need for server to return it like this, however this was my case and since I was using jquery-template I wanted to have it as a nested JSON object. Something like this:

var movies = [{
 "name": "Ice Age 3",
 "details": [
 {"language": "English", "year": "2012"}, 
 {"language": "French", "year": "2011"}, 
 {"language": "German", "year": "2013"}
 ]
}];

Here is the code which I wrote to convert it:

function convert(arr) {
 var convertedArray = [];
 $(arr).each(function () {
 var found = false;
 for (var i = 0; i < convertedArray.length; i++) {
 if (convertedArray[i].name === this.name) {
 found = true;
 convertedArray[i].details.push({
 "language": this.language,
 "year": this.year
 });
 break;
 }
 }
 if (!found) {
 convertedArray.push({
 "name": this.name,
 "details": [{
 "language": this.language,
 "year": this.year
 }]
 });
 }
 });
 return convertedArray;
}

I am sure there would be a better approach for this. But for me it worked.

• EricG: details: { languages: [{}], other: undefined }
• Matt Ball: It's okay to answer your own question, but please pose the question as a question, and post a separate, actual answer. meta.stackexchange.com/q/17463/133242
• Matthew Blancarte: "This is really not a question." Cool story bro?

Answer 1

var found = false;

Using flag is not good practice.

This is better solution:

var movies = [
 {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"English", "year":"2012"},
 {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"French", "year":"2011"},
 {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"German", "year":"2013"},
 {"name":"Ice Age 4", "language":"German", "year":"2013"}
];
function convert(arr) {
 return $.map(unique(arr), function(name){
 return {
 name: name,
 details: $.grep(arr, function(item){
 return item.name == name
 })
 } 
 });
}
function unique(arr) {
 var result = [];
 $.map(arr, function(item){
 if ($.inArray(item.name, result))
 result.push(item.name);
 })
 return result;
}
console.log(convert(movies));

• Shantanu Wagh: Hi Ivan, Thanks for the wonderful code. However the following input displays the data incorrectly: var movies = [ {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"English", "year":"2012"}, {"name":"Ice Age 4", "language":"French", "year":"2011"}, {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"German", "year":"2013"}, {"name":"Ice Age 4", "language":"German", "year":"2013"}, {"name":"Ice Age 3", "language":"German", "year":"2014"} ]