Question

I have this data coming from a REST method using jquery’s getJSON method.

"[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,0,0), 157],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,420,1), 157],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,420,2), 282],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,600,3), 282],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,600,4), 125],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,900,5), 125],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,900,6), 282],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,2100,7), 282],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,2100,8), 125],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,2400,9), 125],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,2400,10), 295],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,3600,11), 295],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,3600,12), 125],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,3900,13), 125],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,3900,14), 288],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,5100,15), 288],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,5100,16), 125],[Date.UTC(2010,0,0,0,0,5400,17), 125]"

It comes back as a string. I need to parse it into a two dimensional array. Each item in the array should have a date and a value.

I also have full control over the REST method, so I could change the way the data returns. I’m interested in making this as fast as possible.

Here’s what we are doing now which I think could be improved:

 var jqxhr = $.getJSON(getDataURL, function(dataResult) {
        var result = dataResult;

        result =result.replace(/\]\,\[/g, ']:[');
        result = result.replace(/\)\,/g, ');');

        var tempArray = result.split(':');

        var myarray = new Array();
        myarray[0] = new Array(2); // Make the first element an array of two elements
        for(i = 0; i < tempArray.length; i ++)
        {
          myarray[i] = tempArray[i].split(';');
          myarray[i][1] = myarray[i][1].replace(/\"/g,'');
          myarray[i][1] = myarray[i][1].replace(/\]/g,'');  
          myarray[i][0] = myarray[i][0].replace(/\[/g,'');                             
        }                                                               
    })

Answer 1

As much as I’m going to get flack for this (eval tends to be a security risk), I would just do

var myarray = eval("[" + result + "]");