Question

I have a MVC application that produces the following output in a browser when I visit a certain URL:

[{"name":"Victoria Day","date":"\/Date(1337583600000)\/"},{"name":"Canada Day","date":"\/Date(1341212400000)\/"},{"name":"Civic Holiday","date":"\/Date(1344236400000)\/"},{"name":"Labour Day","date":"\/Date(1346655600000)\/"},{"name":"Thanksgiving","date":"\/Date(1349679600000)\/"},{"name":"Remembrence Day","date":"\/Date(1352707200000)\/"},{"name":"Christmas","date":"\/Date(1356422400000)\/"},{"name":"Boxing Day","date":"\/Date(1356508800000)\/"}]

Of course, the source code has a bunch of html tags wrapped around that.

How can I assign this raw information to a Javascript array?

Answer 1

Considering your http request returns the raw data that you’ve posted, you should be able to use:

var text = $.trim($(document.body).text());
var cleanedText = text.replace(/\\\/Date\(/g,"").replace(/\)\\\//g,"");
var holidays = $.parseJSON(cleanedText); // This is your array!

alert("Loaded " + holidays.length + " holidays. Fifth one is " + holidays[4].name + " celebrated on " + new Date(parseInt(holidays[4].date)).toString());

// Output(the dates should be printed with your preferred timezone offset): 
// Loaded 8 holidays. Fifth one is Thanksgiving celebrated on Mon Oct 08 2012 10:00:00 
// GMT+0300 (GTB Daylight Time)

If that output that you want to parse resides in other place, you should load it via jQuery in var text using your custom selector. Note that var cleanedText removes the bad characters from date values, in order to parse them as valid javascript Date objects.

Leave a comment if you have further questions. Good Luck!

​JSFiddle working example: click here

Edit: You need jQuery.

Edit2: I think you need to use $.get in order to retrieve your data from a custom url(make sure it’s from the same server or you might run into browser security issues). You should play a little with this and try check if your request goes to the correct path on the server(for example you can check on Google Chome browser under Developer Tools on Network tab all requests data). You should change the content of function(data) { to match your needs.

var url = 'page.html'; // You should change this with the url that returns your data.
$.get(url, function(data) {
  alert('The response is: ' + data); // Make sure it's ok
  var text = $.trim(data);
  var cleanedText = text.replace(/\\\/Date\(/g,"").replace(/\)\\\//g,"");
  var holidays = $.parseJSON(cleanedText); // This is your array!

  alert("Loaded " + holidays.length + " holidays. Fifth one is " + holidays[4].name + "           celebrated on " + new Date(parseInt(holidays[4].date)).toString());
});