Postman - Looping through an array of nested objects to make a variable

Question

I am trying to set a variable from following phone number with value: "[phone]" (index 4 in JSON attached below) which is the last object in contacts (index 4).

To do so is pretty simple:

let jsonData = pm.response.json();
console.log (jsonData.contacts[4].phone_numbers[0].value) 
const PhoneNumber = jsonData.contacts[4].phone_numbers[0].value
pm.environment.set("Jacky", PhoneNumber);

Since I have to use different query parameters to filter by eg. created_at=asc, desc, the property of the phone_numbers order might change index number and I won’t be able to fetch desire phone number "[phone]" instead it will set a different phone number which I cannot allow.

I know there is way to fetch our number and make it variable for next requests, which is iterating over properties or keys in the object " for....in or for...of " but for some reason I cannot achieve it.

What I could achieve is to get through first object "contacts" but impossible to get to its nested array "phone_numbers". Here is how I did it:

let jsonData = pm.response.json();
let contact;
for (let filter of jsonData.contacts){
if (filter.last_name == "Rowland"){
 contact = filter;
}} 
console.log (contact);

Could you please help?

Here goes the JSON body response:

{
 "contacts": [
 {
 "id": 11121211,
 "direct_link": "https://example.example",
 "first_name": "test1",
 "last_name": "test",
 "company_name": "test",
 "information": null,
 "is_shared": true,
 "created_at": 1582798926,
 "updated_at": 1582798926,
 "emails": [],
 "phone_numbers": [
 {
 "id": 60065270,
 "label": "Work",
 "value": "[phone]"
 }
 ]
 },
 {
 "id": 22222222,
 "direct_link": "https://example.example",
 "first_name": null,
 "last_name": null,
 "company_name": null,
 "information": null,
 "is_shared": true,
 "created_at": 1583686067,
 "updated_at": 1583686067,
 "emails": [],
 "phone_numbers": [
 {
 "id": 22266444,
 "label": "Work",
 "value": "[phone]"
 }
 ]
 },
 {
 "id": 33333564,
 "direct_link": "https://example.example",
 "first_name": "Jessica",
 "last_name": "Biel",
 "company_name": "N-Sync",
 "information": null,
 "is_shared": true,
 "created_at": 1583686086,
 "updated_at": 1583686086,
 "emails": [],
 "phone_numbers": []
 },
 {
 "id": 45678901,
 "direct_link": "https://example.example",
 "first_name": null,
 "last_name": null,
 "company_name": null,
 "information": null,
 "is_shared": true,
 "created_at": 1583686105,
 "updated_at": 1583686105,
 "emails": [],
 "phone_numbers": [
 {
 "id": 22266444,
 "label": "Work",
 "value": "[phone]"
 }
 ]
 },
 {
 "id": 56789123,
 "direct_link": "https://example.example",
 "first_name": "Jacky",
 "last_name": "Rowland",
 "company_name": "Test Company1",
 "information": "",
 "is_shared": true,
 "created_at": 1583745888,
 "updated_at": 1608556499,
 "emails": [
 {
 "id": 76594398,
 "label": "Work",
 "value": "[email protected]"
 }
 ],
 "phone_numbers": [
 {
 "id": 60650277,
 "label": "Mobile",
 "value": "[phone]"
 }
 ]
 }
 ],
 "meta": {
 "count": 6,
 "total": 241,
 "current_page": 1,
 "per_page": 5,
 "next_page_link": "https://example.example",
 "previous_page_link": null
 }
}

Answer 1

You could use something basic like this:

_.each(pm.response.json().contacts, (contact) => {
 if(contact.last_name === "Rowland") {
 pm.environment.set(`${contact.first_name}_${contact.last_name}_number`, contact.phone_numbers[0].value)
 }
})

There are probably better and more performant ways to do this but if you just want to set a variable for that contact, no matter where they are in the response - This would work :D

Answer 2

you can use forEach or _.each as danny mentioned to get all numbers else use:

console.info(jsonData.contacts.find((a)=>a.first_name==="Jacky").phone_numbers[0].value)

use array.find to find the contact with first_name jacky adn then get phone_number[0].value from it.

if you want all numbers from that array then use:

console.info(jsonData.contacts.find((a)=>a.first_name==="Jacky").phone_numbers.map((a)=>a.value))

here we map the result to get only the numbers from phone_number array.

is it what you looking for !?

• Danny Dainton: Multiple different ways to do the same thing. Might need to modify your answer to push that into a variable, as the was the original reason, rather than writing it to the console.
• Kwaki: No worries, after checking the log in the console it all made sense and I was able to set my variables. Thanx again