JSON string saved in a database

[Michael1954]

I have a string in MySQL

{
"Firstname":"Mohammed",
"LastName":"Ahmed",
"Phone":"23568555555",
"Email":"[email protected]"
}

I get it on the page with a get value. The string in an alert looks OK but I then want to write it to the page using clientside templating.

var JSON = {dialog.Object}.getValue('JSON');


_d = JSON;





var _t = [
'Firstname: {Firstname}<br>Lastname: {LastName}<br>Phone no.{Phone}<br>Email: {Email}'
].join('');
var settings = {
template: _t,
partials: ''
}
var html = A5.u.template.expand(_d,settings);

document.getElementById("result").innerHTML = html;

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This works fine if I put the code on the page. as below

var _d = {
"Firstname":"Mohammed",
"LastName":"Ahmed",
"Phone":"23568555555",
"Email":"[email protected]"
};

But when I read it from a field I cannot make it work.

If I use JSON.parse(_d);

It says JSON.parse is not a function.

[Davidk]

Re: JSON string saved in a database

Given that you have a STRING of JSON in a table field... you need to change that string to an Object in order to work with templating.

But first... you need to change your variable and UX field names. I consider JSON and HTML to be reserved words. Certainly JSON... because JSON in Javacsript is an Object. By writing var JSON = "anything" you are killing the Javascript Object that we need for parse and everything else JSON does for us. HTML is reserved... well... because it's just dangerous for it not to be considered as such.

So, you have a UX TextBox control named txtJSON (not JSON). In txtJSON is this string... coming from field in a table. All good.

{"Firstname":"Mohammed","LastName":"Ahmed","Phone":"23568555555","Email":"[email protected]"}

So... we need to get this string and then parse it into a JSON Object.
Then use it in template function...

var _d = {dialog.Object}.getValue('txtJSON');

var myJSON = JSON.parse(_d);

var _t = [
'Firstname: {Firstname}<br>Lastname: {LastName}<br>Phone no.{Phone}<br>Email: {Email}'
].join('');
var settings = { 
template: _t,
partials: ''
}
var myHTML = A5.u.template.expand(myJSON,settings);

document.getElementById("result").innerHTML = myHTML;

Here we get the string of JSON and parse it into an Object. A5.u.template.expand() wants a JSON Object... not a string.

[Michael1954]

Re: JSON string saved in a database

Thank you David that did the trick.

[RichCPT]

Re: JSON string saved in a database

Michael, I am just wondering if you really need / want to have your json string in a control field on the UX instead of some place else?

You might consider storing it in a UX state variable. The UX is pretty good now at initializing state variables before doing much else on the client side. I wish I could say the same about "e.javascript"; code in there typically runs last!

(Hey Alpha, how about giving us something like, "e.javascriptRunFirst" in server-side "onDialogInitialize"? (It wouldn't run exactly first, but right after setting the UX state variables.)

[Michael1954]

Re: JSON string saved in a database

Absolutely. We intended to write the parser at the time we created the field definition, we have done this successfully The client rushed us to display the data on a UX. We had 3 hours to work out a method and test the record os already in a grid so just having the JSON as a hidden field was the quickest solution.

Like all projects when the client saw this they wanted the whole UI rewritten.