Question

I am currently working on a page that will read in XML files that are in a directory (dynamically) and then send them back to the client via JSON. However I’m not sure how to reference the dynamic elements of the JSON array that is returned. EG.

$.getJSON('getfilenames.php', function(data) {
    for(var i in data)
    {
        var temp3 = data[i].name;(<-- if I dont know what .name was)
        var temp2 = temp3.replace(".xml","");
        temp = temp +'<option value="'+temp3+'">' +temp2 +'</option>';
    }
    temp = temp +'</select>';
    $("#div2").html(temp);
}

If I didn’t already know what the .name element within data was, how could I :
A: retrieve a list of them for referencing, or B: access the data to do it myself.
I am also curious as to how I go about getting elements from within elements. EG:

{"contact":{"@attributes":{"id":"1"},"name":"John Doe","phone":"123-456-7890","address":"\n 123 JFKStreet\n "}}

How would I get the name attribute out.

Answer 1

You just need to iterate over the properties of the returned object..

for (var prop in data[i]){
   // prop hold the name of the property (name) in your example
   // do something with data[i][prop]
}

You can go as deep in an object with multiple . notation..

from your last example (assuming the variable holding this object is data)

data.contact.name // "John Doe"
data.contact['@attributes'].id // 1 - we used the [] syntax because of @