Converting text so it can be parsed as JSON

Question

I have historical data that I need to process but cannot recreate. The problem I'm having is that there are no quotes around the identifiers so it can't be parsed using JSON.parse(data).

Here's some sample data:

[2013-10-04 12:14:39.987] [INFO] clientOut - broadcast: 97e27acf-0f4d-4021-a3a9-7e301e22ad59 #000006425 vehicle telemetry:  { speed: 0.13,
  velocity: { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0 },
  attitude: 
   { pitch: 3.309539134025706,
     roll: 6.72947632315362,
     yaw: 136.35147621231474,
     x: 3.309539134025706,
     y: 6.72947632315362,
     z: 136.35147621231474 },
  altitude: 7.023,
  temperature: 0,
  heading: 136.35147621231474,
  counter: '000006425' }

The above entry was created via log4js in node.js. I can pull out the JSON-like data, but it's still not valid. I need it to look like this:

{ "speed": 0.13,
  "velocity": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "z": 0 },
  "attitude": 
   { "pitch": 3.309539134025706,
     "roll": 6.72947632315362,
     "yaw": 136.35147621231474,
     "x": 3.309539134025706,
     "y": 6.72947632315362,
     "z": 136.35147621231474 },
  "altitude": 7.023,
  "temperature": 0,
  "heading": 136.35147621231474,
  "counter": "000006425" }

How can I do this? Is there an easy approach to apply quotes to each identifier?

All of your data is in this standard pattern only or pattern may be different too.. — Deepak Bhatia, Oct 26 '13 at 06:59
It's all in this standard pattern. I was using log4js and passing an object for it to report on. I didn't realise at the time that it doesn't do a JSON.stringify. — Metalskin, Oct 26 '13 at 07:01

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

Figured it out with the help of an answer to a non related question (see here).

My solution was to process the data as follows:

var t = "{ speed: 0.09, velocity: { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0 }, attitude: { pitch: 0.9244929980310828, roll: -20.314323016242536, yaw: 155.80094530792465, x: 0.9244929980310828, y: -20.314323016242536, z: 155.80094530792465 }, altitude: 23.357, temperature: 0, heading: 155.7801815328478, vsi: 0, position: { latitude: 0, longitude: 0, altitude: 0 }, throttle: 0, batteryVoltage: 38.696, batteryCurrent: 0, batteryCharge: 0, commDropRate: 0, commErrors: 0, dirty: false, batteryRemaining: 0, counter: '000000001' }";

t = t.replace(/(['"])?([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)(['"])?:/g, '"$2":');
t = t.replace(/'/g, '"');

console.log("data: " + t);
console.log("data: " + JSON.parse(t));

The first replace fixes the quote issue, the second replace fixes the singe quote on the counter attribute. Thanks to Anthony for his regex.

Converting text so it can be parsed as JSON

1 Answers1