Pattern does not work about lazy regular expressions in json context - json

I have this context:
{"id":"123","title":"aaa","url":"aaaa","visit":"1"},{"id":"456","title":"aaa","url":"aaaa","visit":"0"},{"id":"789","title":"aaa","url":"aaaa","visit":"0"},
I want to get all id with visit equal to 0.
I write this pattern:
{"id":"(.*?)".*?"visit":"0"}
As you can see result in here:
https://regex101.com/r/H0LXQ9/2
return 123 and 789 !
But correct return that I expect must be 456 and 789.
What's correct pattern for it?

This is because .*?, although lazy, will extend until the first "visit":"0" match succeeds (as opposed to greedy .*, which would extend until the last match.)
You need to change "any char" pattern to "not a string boundary" and "not an object boundary":
{"id":"([^"]*?)"[^}]*?"visit":"0"}
^^^^ ^^^^
Demo: https://regex101.com/r/H0LXQ9/3
Please note this would work only until string values contain (escaped) quotes or braces. Generally, parsing JSON with regex is bad idea. Use JSON parser and process the resulting objects instead.

You could use look ahead:
\d+(?=","title[^}]*?visit":"0"})
https://regex101.com/r/H0LXQ9/4

Related

Alternative ways to extract the contents of a JSON string

Consider the following query:
select '"{\"foo\":\"bar\"}"'::json;
This will return a single record of a single element containing a JSON string. See:
test=# select json_typeof('"{\"foo\":\"bar\"}"'::json); json_typeof
-------------
string
(1 row)
It is possible to extract the contents of the string as follows:
=# select ('"{\"foo\":\"bar\"}"'::json) #>>'{}';
json
---------------
{"foo":"bar"}
(1 row)
From this point onward, the result can be cast as a JSON object:
test=# select json_typeof((('"{\"foo\":\"bar\"}"'::json) #>>'{}')::json);
json_typeof
-------------
object
(1 row)
This way seems magical.
I define no path within the extraction operator, yet what is returned is not what I passed. This seems like passing no index to an array accessor, and getting an element back.
I worry that I will confuse the next maintainer to look at this logic.
Is there a less magical way to do this?
But you did define a path. Defining "root" as path is just another path. And that's just what the #>> operator is for:
Extracts JSON sub-object at the specified path as text.
Rendering as text effectively applies the escape characters in the string. When casting back to json the special meaning of double-quotes (not escaped any more) kicks in. Nothing magic there. No better way to do it.
If you expect it to be confusing to the afterlife, add comments explaining what you are doing there.
Maybe, in the spirit of clarity, you might use the equivalent function json_extract_path_text() instead. The manual:
Extracts JSON sub-object at the specified path as text. (This is functionally equivalent to the #>> operator.)
Now, the function has a VARIADIC parameter, and you typically enter path elements one-by-one, like the example in the manual demonstrates:
json_extract_path_text('{"f2":{"f3":1},"f4":{"f5":99,"f6":"foo"}}',
'f4', 'f6') → foo
You cannot enter the "root" path this way. But (what the manual does not add at this point) you can alternatively provide an actual array after adding the keyword VARIADIC. See:
Pass multiple values in single parameter
So this does the trick:
SELECT json_extract_path_text('"{\"foo\":\"bar\"}"'::json, VARIADIC '{}')::json;
And since we are all about being explicit, use the verbose SQL standard cast syntax:
SELECT cast(json_extract_path_text('"{\"foo\":\"bar\"}"'::json, VARIADIC '{}') AS json)
Any clearer, yet? (I would personally prefer your shorter original, but I may be biased, being a "native speaker" of Postgres..)
The question is, why do you have that odd JSON literal including escapes as JSON string in the first place?

Is there a JOLT documentation? What's the meaning of the &, # etc. operators? (NiFi, JoltTransformJSON)

Yeah there is! I made this question to share my knowledge, Q&A style since I had a hard time finding it myself :)
Thanks to https://stackoverflow.com/a/67821482/1561441 (Barbaros Özhan, see comments) for pointing me into the correct direction
The answer is: look here and here
Correct me if I'm wrong, but: Wow, currently to my knowledge a single .java file on GitHub, last commit in 2017, holds relevant parts of the official documentation of the JOLT syntax. I had to use its syntax since I'm working with NiFi and applied its JoltTransformJSON processor (hence the SEO abuses in my question, so more people find the answer)
Here are some of the most relevant parts copied from https://github.com/bazaarvoice/jolt/blob/master/jolt-core/src/main/java/com/bazaarvoice/jolt/Shiftr.java and slightly edited. The documentation itself is more extensive and also shows examples.
'*' Wildcard
Valid only on the LHS ( input JSON keys ) side of a Shiftr Spec
The '*' wildcard can be used by itself or to match part of a key.
'&' Wildcard
Valid on the LHS (left hand side - input JSON keys) and RHS (output data path)
Means, dereference against a "path" to get a value and use that value as if were a literal key.
The canonical form of the wildcard is "&(0,0)".
The first parameter is where in the input path to look for a value, and the second parameter is which part of the key to use (used with * key).
There are syntactic sugar versions of the wildcard, all of the following mean the same thing; Sugar : '&' = '&0' = '&(0)' = '&(0,0)
The syntactic sugar versions are nice, as there are a set of data transforms that do not need to use the canonical form, eg if your input data does not have any "prefixed" keys.
'$' Wildcard
Valid only on the LHS of the spec.
The existence of this wildcard is a reflection of the fact that the "data" of the input JSON, can be both in the "values" and the "keys" of the input JSON
The base case operation of Shiftr is to copy input JSON "values", thus we need a way to specify that we want to copy the input JSON "key" instead.
Thus '$' specifies that we want to use an input key, or input key derived value, as the data to be placed in the output JSON.
'$' has the same syntax as the '&' wildcard, and can be read as, dereference to get a value, and then use that value as the data to be output.
There are two cases where this is useful
when a "key" in the input JSON needs to be a "id" value in the output JSON, see the ' "$": "SecondaryRatings.&1.Id" ' example above.
you want to make a list of all the input keys.
'#' Wildcard
Valid both on the LHS and RHS, but has different behavior / format on either side.
The way to think of it, is that it allows you to specify a "synthentic" value, aka a value not found in the input data.
On the RHS of the spec, # is only valid in the the context of an array, like "[#2]".
What "[#2]" means is, go up the three levels and ask that node how many matches it has had, and then use that as an index in the arrays.
This means that, while Shiftr is doing its parallel tree walk of the input data and the spec, it tracks how many matches it has processed at each level of the spec tree.
This useful if you want to take a JSON map and turn it into a JSON array, and you do not care about the order of the array.
On the LHS of the spec, # allows you to specify a hard coded String to be place as a value in the output.
The initial use-case for this feature was to be able to process a Boolean input value, and if the value is boolean true write out the string "enabled". Note, this was possible before, but it required two Shiftr steps.
'#' Wildcard
Valid on both sides of the spec.
The basic '#' on the LHS.
This wildcard is necessary if you want to put both the input value and the input key somewhere in the output JSON.
Thus the '#' wildcard is the mean "copy the value of the data at this level in the tree, to the output".
Advanced '#' sign wildcard
The format is lools like "#(3,title)", where "3" means go up the tree 3 levels and then lookup the key "title" and use the value at that key.
I would love to know if there is an alternative to JoltTransformJSON simply because I'm struggling a lot with understanding it (not coming from a programming background myself). When it works (thanks to all the help here) it does simplify things a lot!
Here are a few other sites that help:
https://intercom.help/godigibee/en/articles/4044359-transformer-getting-to-know-jolt
https://erbalvindersingh.medium.com/applying-jolttransform-on-json-object-array-and-fetching-specific-fields-48946870b4fc
https://cool-cheng.blogspot.com/2019/12/json-jolt-tutorial.html

Regex: Is it possible to do a substitution within a capture group?

I have this one line JSON text:
{"schemaText":{"fields":[{"name":"AX_SND_TYPE","type":"string"},{"name":"BWORK","type":"int"}],"name":"XXXSchema","type":"record"},"description":"Autogenerated by NiFi"}
As can be seen there is a property called "schemaText" that contains an object, I want to convert it to a string, so the 'only' thing I need to do is add quotes at the beginning and end of the property and escape the quotes inside.
Using the regular expression bellow (not that my regex knowledge is really low), I am able to do the first step:
({"schemaText":)(\{"fields":\[.*)(,"description.*)
Using the substitution
$1"$2"$3
gives the result:
{"schemaText":"{"fields":[{"name":"AX_SND_TYPE","type":"string"},{"name":"BWORK","type":"int"}],"name":"XXXSchema","type":"record"}","description":"Autogenerated by NiFi"}
But still remains to escape the quotes to get this:
{"schemaText":"{\"fields\":[{\"name\":\"AX_SND_TYPE\",\"type\":\"string\"},{\"name\":\"BWORK\",\"type\":\"int\"}],"name":"XXXSchema","type":"record"}","description":"Autogenerated by NiFi"}
That is have valid JSON format.
The question is: is there a way to escape the quotes inside $2 capture group in the same regular expression?
Thanks in advance.
The answer to your question is no, it's not possible. You're really trying to do two different, unrelated substitutions in a single regular expression. This is a feature that no regular expression engine supports.
Think about it: Your first requirement is for the engine to perform a substitution on the whole text (the quotes), and then, for your second requirement, the engine has to somehow backtrack and perform more substitutions on text which may or may not have already changed: e.g.: It would need to perform a new match on the already substituted text, which, depending on what the first substitution did, may not even exist anymore!
If, as you say, you already have an aproach that works, keep that. A single regular expression is simply not a good fit for what you are trying to do.
I'd recommend tackling this problem using code e.g. with vanilla JavaScript:
let json = '{"schemaText":{"fields":[{"name":"AX_SND_TYPE","type":"string"},{"name":"BWORK","type":"int"}],"name":"XXXSchema","type":"record"},"description":"Autogenerated by NiFi"}';
let obj = JSON.parse(json);
let schemaTextAsString = JSON.stringify(obj.schemaText)
obj.schemaText = schemaTextAsString
var result = JSON.stringify(obj)
You can see this working here.
Note that in your desired output you were not escaping the quotes in schemaText's name field, but this code does.
Finally whenever I use regular expressions I always think of this classic article "Regular Expressions: Now You Have Two Problems"!
Just for your information, you can actually match at every position where a substitution should occur, using an expression such as the following:
/({"schemaText":)|}(,"description")(.*)|([^"]*)"/g
The only issue, as others have mentioned, is that you want to do more than match; you want to perform a "conditional replacement" because there does not exist a single catch-all substitution that will cover all 3 cases you're dealing with (insert starting ", insert \ before quotes, and insert ending ").
You can in fact accomplish this with a single replace() call:
var test = "{\"schemaText\":{\"fields\":[{\"name\":\"AX_SND_TYPE\",\"type\":\"string\"},{\"name\":\"BWORK\",\"type\":\"int\"}],\"name\":\"XXXSchema\",\"type\":\"record\"},\"description\":\"Autogenerated by NiFi\"}";
window.alert(test.replace(/({"schemaText":)|}(,"description")(.*)|([^"]*)"/g, function(a,b,c,d,e){ return (b=="{\"schemaText\":"?b+"\"":(c==",\"description\""?"}\""+c+d:e+"\\\"")) })));
So it's technically "the same regex", but the substitution parameter uses an inline function as replacement rather than a static string.

Regular expression to extract a value from a given string

I need a regular expression to extract a value from a given key/value pair. It's not for a specific language. A working example in https://regex101.com/ would be great.
Here's what I get:
{"task_id":"12323232-323-23-321"}
and here's what I expect:
12323232-323-23-321
I know, it looks easy, but drives me crazy.
The perfect solution would be:
"return the value for task_id"
.
Thanks in advance
Adam
Don't know why would you want to use regex in this case since you're dealing with json. It's unlikely that the language you're using would not have a support / library for json, which would allow you to extract the task_id.
Getting back to regex you could try capturing a group.
:"(.*?)"

Do the JSON keys have to be surrounded by quotes?

Example:
Is the following code valid against the JSON Spec?
{
precision: "zip"
}
Or should I always use the following syntax? (And if so, why?)
{
"precision": "zip"
}
I haven't really found something about this in the JSON specifications. Although they use quotes around their keys in their examples.
Yes, you need quotation marks. This is to make it simpler and to avoid having to have another escape method for javascript reserved keywords, ie {for:"foo"}.
You are correct to use strings as the key. Here is an excerpt from RFC 4627 - The application/json Media Type for JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
2.2. Objects
An object structure is represented as a pair of curly brackets
surrounding zero or more name/value pairs (or members). A name is a
string. A single colon comes after each name, separating the name
from the value. A single comma separates a value from a following
name. The names within an object SHOULD be unique.
object = begin-object [ member *( value-separator member ) ] end-object
member = string name-separator value
[...]
2.5. Strings
The representation of strings is similar to conventions used in the C
family of programming languages. A string begins and ends with
quotation marks. [...]
string = quotation-mark *char quotation-mark
quotation-mark = %x22 ; "
Read the whole RFC here.
From 2.2. Objects
An object structure is represented as a pair of curly brackets surrounding zero or more name/value pairs (or members). A name is a string.
and from 2.5. Strings
A string begins and ends with quotation marks.
So I would say that according to the standard: yes, you should always quote the key (although some parsers may be more forgiving)
Yes, quotes are mandatory. http://json.org/ says:
string
""
" chars "
Not if you use JSON5
For regular JSON, yes keys must be quoted. But if you need otherwise, checkout widely used JSON5, which is so-named because is a superset of JSON that allows ES5 syntax, including:
unquoted property keys
single-quoted, escaped and multi-line strings
alternate number formats
comments
extra whitespace
The JSON5 reference implementation (json5 npm package) provides a JSON5 object that has parse and stringify methods with the same args and semantics as the built-in JSON object.
widely used, and depended on by many high profile projects
JSON5 was started in 2012, and as of 2022, now gets >65M downloads/week, ranks in the top 0.1% of the most depended-upon packages on npm, and has been adopted by major projects like Chromium, Next.js, Babel, Retool, WebStorm, and more. It's also natively supported on Apple platforms like MacOS and iOS.
~ json5.org homepage
In your situation, both of them are valid, meaning that both of them will work.
However, you still should use the one with quotation marks in the key names because it is more conventional, which leads to more simplicity and ability to have key names with white spaces etc.
Therefore, use the one with the quotation marks.
edit// check this: What is the difference between JSON and Object Literal Notation?
Since you can put "parent.child" dotted notation and you don't have to put parent["child"] which is also valid and useful, I'd say both ways is technically acceptable. The parsers all should do both ways just fine. If your parser does not need quotes on keys then it's probably better not to put them (saves space). It makes sense to call them strings because that is what they are, and since the square brackets gives you the ability to use values for keys essentially it makes perfect sense not to.
In Json you can put...
>var keyName = "someKey";
>var obj = {[keyName]:"someValue"};
>obj
Object {someKey: "someValue"}
just fine without issues, if you need a value for a key and none quoted won't work, so if it doesn't, you can't, so you won't so "you don't need quotes on keys". Even if it's right to say they are technically strings. Logic and usage argue otherwise. Nor does it officially output Object {"someKey": "someValue"} for obj in our example run from the console of any browser.