Re: JSON un-named arrays

Jon,

I agree that the 2nd design doesn't make much sense.  Are you certain it didn't look like this?

{
"product": {
"Loveseat": 395.99,
"Sofa": 1159.99
}
}

That would be, perhaps, the most efficient way to do it -- and the most logical way in many programming languages (much better than your "productname" and "price" design).

However, it really doesn't work with DATA-INTO.   But, 99.9% of people working with JSON aren't using DATA-INTO (since they're not RPG shops) so it's easy to see why.

What we have above is essentially a look up table... very much like what we can do with %LOOKUP in RPG, or a keyed file with the CHAIN opcode.  In languages like JavaScript, Python, or PHP you'd simply do:

price = myJson.product[key];

If key="Loveseat" you'd get 395.99, if key="Sofa" you'd get 1159.99.  Super easy, performs extremely well... it's an excellent interface design, as long as you're not using DATA-INTO :-)

-SK


On 7/20/23 9:56 AM, Jon Paris wrote:

Nasty.

The nastiest one I encountered was one where they basically made up the data names based on the query. If the query (for example) returned two products then instead of an array of data containing something like:

{
"product": [{
"productname": "Loveseat",
"price": 395.99
},
{
"productname": "Sofa",
"price": 1159.99
}
]
}

It would instead be:

{
"product": [{
"Loveseat": 395.99
},
{
"Sofa": 1159.99
}
]
}

Bad enough by itself but a similar system was used for other features. Truly horrible "design".

In the JSON world, there seems to be rather too much of a "because we can" attitude.