How to search a JSON object for a specific string within the object using jquery

Question

I am retrieving JSON objects from an API using AJAX calls in jQuery. This is an example object that I am getting back:

  ...
  "batchcomplete": "",
  "query": {
    "normalized": [
      {
        "from": "star trek",
        "to": "Star trek"
      }
    ],
    "pages": {
      "1048985": {
        "pageid": 1048985,
        "ns": 0,
        "title": "Star trek",
        "extract": "<ul><li><b>From other capitalisation</b>: This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalisation. It leads to the title in accordance with the Wikipedia naming conventions for capitalisation, or it leads to a title that is associated in some way with the conventional capitalisation of this redirect title. This may help writing, searching and international language issues.\n<ul><li>If this redirect is an incorrect capitalisation, then {{R from miscapitalisation}} should be used <i>instead</i>, and pages that use this link should be updated to link <i>directly</i> to the target. Miscapitisations can be tagged in <i>any namespace</i>.</li>\n<li>Use this rcat to tag <i>only</i> mainspace redirects; when other capitalisations are in other namespaces, use {{R from modification}} <i>instead</i>.</li>\n</ul></li>\n</ul>"
      }
    }
  }
}

I have another JSON object coming back that looks like this:

{
  "batchcomplete": "",
  "query": {
    "normalized": [
      {
        "from": "set",
        "to": "Set"
      }
    ],
    "pages": {
      "454886": {
        "pageid": 454886,
        "ns": 0,
        "title": "Set",
        "extract": "<p><b>Set</b> or <b>The Set</b> may refer to:</p>\n\n"
      }
    }
  }
}

What I am attempting to do is search these objects for specific strings in order to perform logic on the results to retrieve the data I am actually looking for. In the first example, I want to find 'From other capitalisation' in the "extract" value, and in the second example, I want to find 'may refer to:'.

Is there a way to search a specific JSON object for a specific string and return whether that string is present or not?

not really. These are the only two strings that I need to search for. Both of these strings will trigger different logic on the results. — Jeff Swearingen
– Jeff Swearingen, Commented Nov 21, 2016 at 21:15

Austin Ezell · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-21 21:25:16Z

1

For your specific case, I would do something like this

function searchResponse(response, query){

  // loop through the objects keys which appear to be different page numbers
  for (const pageNum in response.pages){
    // reference the actual page object
    const page = response.pages[pageNum];


    // test the extract against the query.         
    if (page.extract.indexOf(query) !== -1) {
      return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
}

Then you'd invoke the function on each response with whatever search term you are looking for. A result of true would mean that the response contained the query. However, this would not work if the api returned multiple pages because it would search through each page and return true if ANY of the pages contained the query, which might not be the desired results.

answered Nov 21, 2016 at 21:25

Austin Ezell

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1 Comment

Jeff Swearingen Over a year ago

Thanks. I don't know why indexOf didn't come to me for solving this problem.

WitVault · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-21 21:30:28Z

0

I hope this helps you. Using plain javascript to iterate over keys and find the required object.

var obj = {
  "batchcomplete": "",
  "query": {
    "normalized": [{
      "from": "set",
      "to": "Set"
    }],
    "pages": {
      "454886": {
        "pageid": 454886,
        "ns": 0,
        "title": "Set",
        "extract": "<p><b>Set</b> or <b>The Set</b> may refer to:</p>\n\n"
      }
    }
  }
 };

var searchStr = " may refer to";
var results = [];
Object.keys(obj.query.pages).forEach(function(key) {
  if (obj.query.pages[key].extract.includes(searchStr)) {
    results.push(obj.query.pages[key].extract);
  }
});

results.forEach(function(res){ console.log(res); });

answered Nov 21, 2016 at 21:30

WitVault

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3 Comments

Jeff Swearingen Over a year ago

I hadn't considered includes as an option. Does that only work for testing strings in jQuery or would that work for testing other data types as well?

Austin Ezell Over a year ago

includes works on any String but it is ES2015 and might not be supported on all browsers yet.

WitVault Over a year ago

@AustinEzell you can use polyfill for that. But just for this task using jquery will be overkill I guess.

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