Possible to import/navigate JSON?

[hyiltiz]

I tried treeline a.json but none of the import formats seem sensible to use for a JSON file. I can imagine converting the JSON to XML first, but it might make more sense to provide native support to JSON? The website mentions JSON so I thought importing was also supported.

TreeLine files use a JSON format, with options for automatically compressing or encrypting the files.

[doug-101]

Hörmet Yiltiz wrote:

I tried treeline a.json but none of the import formats seem sensible to use for a JSON file. I can imagine converting the JSON to XML first, but it might make more sense to provide native support to JSON? The website mentions JSON so I thought importing was also supported.

TreeLine files use a JSON format, with options for automatically compressing or encrypting the files.

That statement means that TreeLine uses JSON as its native storage format. Open a TreeLine file in a text editor and you'll see it.

But TreeLine doesn't offer a generic JSON import. The problem is that JSON does not have a particular defined structure. Consistently converting it into a tree (or even a list of nodes) is not possible in the general case. This is different from XML, which has a more defined nested structure.

-Doug

[hyiltiz]

Could you give a counter-example? I think most of the cases can be dealt with simply adding a root node on top if it is just a plain list.

[doug-101]

To make a counter-example clear, let me start with the very limited case that would work. A JSON file that consists of a top-level array containing nothing but objects (key/value pairs). Each object would become a node with the keys as field names and the values as the field values. It would create a flat tree (no parent/child info), but that would be fine.

But what if one of the values is an array? If the array contains objects, it could be used to define a tree structure, with the object containing an array of children. A minor issue is that the key for the array would be discarded. A more significant issue is what to do with an array containing text or number values. Even worse would be an array with a mixture of types.

Basically, it's not practical to import a generic JSON file into TreeLine.

-Doug

[hyiltiz]

Did you mean something like this? Note that replacing the top level { with [ produces a faulty file that doesn't parse as JSON.

{"a": "A",
 "b": "B",
 "c": {
     "text": "Premature optimization!",
     "number": 3.14,
     "someField": "this array has Objects whose values have mixed types."
 }
}

Firefox parses the above JSON as a tree-like structure.

[doug-101]

Of course just replacing the top level { with ] doesn't work. Arrays don't directly contain key/value pairs. Please do some research on valid JSON array syntax.

And please read what I said carefully:

To make a counter-example clear, let me start with the very limited case that would work. A JSON file that consists of a top-level array containing nothing but objects (key/value pairs). Each object would become a node with the keys as field names and the values as the field values. It would create a flat tree (no parent/child info), but that would be fine.

I said that a file with only objects would work. But most JSON files also contain arrays. Including them would break the structure, especially if they contain mixed types.

-Doug