Background
I want to show part of my bookmarks on my Hugo website. The bookmarks from Firefox can be saved in JSON format, this is the source. The result should represent the nested structure somehow, in a format of a nested list, treeview or accordion. The source files of contents on the website are written in markdown. I want to generate a markdown file from the JSON input.
As I searched for possible solutions:
- treeview or accordion: HTML, CSS and Javascript needed. I could not nest accordions with the
<details>tag. Also, seems like overkill at the moment. - unordered list: can be done with bare markdown.
I chose to generate an unordered nested list from JSON. I would like to do this with R.
Input/output
Input sample: https://gist.github.com/hermanp/c01365b8f4931ea7ff9d1aee1cbbc391
Preferred output (indentation with two spaces):
- Info
- Python
- [The Ultimate Python Beginner's Handbook](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-python-guide-for-beginners/)
- [Python Like You Mean It](https://www.pythonlikeyoumeanit.com/index.html)
- [Automate the Boring Stuff with Python](https://automatetheboringstuff.com/)
- [Data science Python notebooks](https://github.com/donnemartin/data-science-ipython-notebooks)
- Frontend
- [CodePen](https://codepen.io/)
- [JavaScript](https://www.javascript.com/)
- [CSS-Tricks](https://css-tricks.com/)
- [Butterick’s Practical Typography](https://practicaltypography.com/)
- [Front-end Developer Handbook 2019](https://frontendmasters.com/books/front-end-handbook/2019/)
- [Using Ethics In Web Design](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/03/using-ethics-in-web-design/)
- [Client-Side Web Development](https://info340.github.io/)
- [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/)
- [HUP](https://hup.hu/)
- [Hope in Source](https://hopeinsource.com/)
Bonus preferred output: show favicons before links, like below (other suggestion welcomed, like loading them from the website's server instead of linking):
- ![https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/Img/apple-touch-icon.png?v=c78bd457575a][Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/)
Attempt
generate_md <- function (file) {
# Encoding problem with tidyjson::read_json
bmarks_json_lite <- jsonlite::fromJSON(
txt = paste0("https://gist.githubusercontent.com/hermanp/",
"c01365b8f4931ea7ff9d1aee1cbbc391/raw/",
"33c21c88dad35145e2792b6258ede9c882c580ec/",
"bookmarks-example.json"))
# This is the start point, a data frame
level1 <- bmarks_json_lite$children$children[[2]]
# Get the name of the variable to modify it.
# Just felt that some abstraction needed.
varname <- deparse(substitute(level1))
varlevel <- as.integer(substr(varname, nchar(varname), nchar(varname)))
# Get through the data frame by its rows.
for (i in seq_len(nrow(get(varname)))) {
# If the type of the element in the row is "text/x-moz-place",
# then get its title and create a markdown list element from it.
if (get(varname)["type"][i] == "text/x-moz-place"){
# The two space indentation shall be multiplied as many times
# as deeply nested in the lists (minus one).
md_title <- paste0(strrep(" ", varlevel - 1),
"- ",
get(varname)["title"][i],
"\n")
# Otherwise do this and also get inside the next level.
} else if (get(varname)["type"][i] == "text/x-moz-place-container") {
md_title <- paste0(strrep(" ", varlevel - 1),
"- ",
get(varname)["title"][i],
"\n")
# I know this is not good, just want to express my thought.
# Create the next, deeper level's variable, whoose name shall
# represent the depth in the nest.
# Otherwise how can I multiply the indentation for the markdown
# list elements? It depends on the name of this variable.
varname <- paste0(regmatches(varname, regexpr("[[:alpha:]]+", varname)),
varlevel + 1L)
varlevel <- varlevel + 1L
assign(varname, get(varname)["children"][[i]])
# The same goes on as seen at the higher level.
for (j in seq_len(nrow(get(varname)))){
if (get(varname)["type"][i] == "text/x-moz-place"){
md_title <- paste0(strrep(" ", varlevel - 1),
"- ",
get(varname)["title"][i],
"\n")
} else if (get(varname)["type"][i] == "text/x-moz-place-container") {
md_title <- paste0(strrep(" ", varlevel - 1),
"- ",
get(varname)["title"][i],
"\n")
varname <- paste0(regmatches(varname, regexpr("[[:alpha:]]+", varname)),
varlevel + 1L)
varlevel <- varlevel + 1L
assign(varname, get(varname)["children"][[i]])
for (k in seq_len(nrow(get(varname)))){
# I don't know where this goes...
# Also I need to paste somewhere the md_title strings to get the
# final markdown output...
}
}
}
}
}
}
Question
How can I recursively grab and paste strings from this JSON file? I tried to search for tips in recursion, but it's quite a hard topic. Any suggestion, package, function, link will be welcomed!
