Dynamically display JSON file contents

Question

I am given a json file that contains a variable amount objects, all of which are different.

Here is an example of my JSON file.

{ 
"DNS": {
 "Server": MYSERVER01
 "IP": "XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX"
 },
"TST": {
 "SubKeyCount": 0,
 "View": 0,
 "Handle": {
 "IsInvalid": false,
 "IsClosed": false
 },
 "ValueCount": 309,
 "Name": "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\TST",
 "ComputerName": "MYSERVER01",
 "Hive": -2147483646,
 "Path": "Software\\TST"
 },
"ServiceNow": null,
"InstalledSoftware": [
 {
 "Status": true,
 "Software": [
 "Symantec NetBackup 7.5",
 "Symantec NetBackup Client",
 ],
 "Version": [
 "0000",
 "7.5",
 ]
 },
 {
 "Status": true,
 "Software": "Symantec Endpoint Protection",
 "Version": "12"
 },
 {
 "Status": true,
 "Software": "System Center 2012,
 "Version": "7.0"
 }
 ],
"AutoDuplex": {
 "Description": "NIC Auto/Auto and Duplexing",
 "Status": true
 },
"DefaultAdGroups": [
 {
 "Result": true,
 "Group": "Domain Admins"
 },
 {
 "Result": true,
 "Group": "Test-Team"
 },
 {
 "Result": true,
 "Group": MYSERVER01-ADMINS"
 }
 ]

}

This is just a handful of objects that could be in my JSON file.

Currently I am making an ajax call form my jquery to read the file and send my jquery the json as a string. I am then parsing the data into json format.

I am a little confused on how I can display this information neatly using <ul>'s since there are so many arrays nested down deeply within the file.

I also am not sure how to dynamically iterate through each object in the json file. Before I started this, I was only used to seeing 1 object per file. This is a little different though and it is not as easy as specifying:

var jsonQC = jQuery.parseJSON(result); //result from controller
jsonQC[1]

• charlietfl: all of which are different . Hard to know what expected results are without some guidelines
• Johnrad: That's the thing, I don't know. Any of the objects can contain more/less information than what is displayed in my example. It all depends on when the JSON file is being read.

Answer 1

There are some datatable jQuery plugins to display complext JSon data. Here is one example: https://editor.datatables.net/examples/advanced/deepObjects.html

Or, you can use recursive functions as explained here: jQuery JSON looping through nested objects

Answer 2

How about using dl/dt/dd?

function makeDom(obj) {
 var $dl = $("<dl/>");
 $.each(obj, function(name, val) {
 $("<dt>").text(name).appendTo($dl);
 var $dd = $("<dd>");
 if(val && typeof val === "object") {
 $dd.append(makeDom(val));
 } else {
 $dd.text(val);
 }
 $dd.appendTo($dl);
 });
 return $dl;
}
var obj = { 
"DNS": {
 "Server": "MYSERVER01",
 "IP": "XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX"
 },
"TST": {
 "SubKeyCount": 0,
 "View": 0,
 "Handle": {
 "IsInvalid": false,
 "IsClosed": false
 },
 "ValueCount": 309,
 "Name": "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\TST",
 "ComputerName": "MYSERVER01",
 "Hive": -2147483646,
 "Path": "Software\\TST"
 },
"ServiceNow": null,
"InstalledSoftware": [
 {
 "Status": true,
 "Software": [
 "Symantec NetBackup 7.5",
 "Symantec NetBackup Client",
 ],
 "Version": [
 "0000",
 "7.5",
 ]
 },
 {
 "Status": true,
 "Software": "Symantec Endpoint Protection",
 "Version": "12"
 },
 {
 "Status": true,
 "Software": "System Center 2012",
 "Version": "7.0"
 }
 ],
"AutoDuplex": {
 "Description": "NIC Auto/Auto and Duplexing",
 "Status": true
 },
"DefaultAdGroups": [
 {
 "Result": true,
 "Group": "Domain Admins"
 },
 {
 "Result": true,
 "Group": "Test-Team"
 },
 {
 "Result": true,
 "Group": "MYSERVER01-ADMINS"
 }
 ]
};
$(function() {
 makeDom(obj).appendTo("body");
});

Fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/robbyn/0u21ewon/

• Johnrad: This is great, and exactly the logic that I am looking for. The only thing really holding me back is when a JSON object contians multiple arrays. With this method, the header shows a 0 or a 1, what do you think is the best way of stripping this out?
• Maurice Perry: An array is an object, there are several ways to test if an object is an array: stackoverflow.com/questions/4775722/check-if-object-is-array one is to test the presence of a "length" property.