gather_array: Stack a JSON array

In sailthru/tidyjson: A Grammar for Turning 'JSON' into Tidy Tables

Description

Given a JSON array, such as [1, 2, 3], gather_array will "stack" the array in the tbl_json data.frame, by replicating each row of the data.frame by the length of the corresponding JSON array. A new column (by default called "array.index") will be added to keep track of the referenced position in the array for each row of the resuling data.frame.

Usage

gather_array(x, column.name = "array.index")

Arguments

x	a tbl_json whose JSON attribute should always be an array
column.name	the name to give to the array index column created

Details

JSON can contain arrays of data, which can be simple vectors (fixed or varying length integer, character or logical vectors). But they also often contain lists of other objects (like a list of purchases for a user). The function gather_array() takes JSON arrays and duplicates the rows in the data.frame to correspond to the indices of the array, and puts the elements of the array into the JSON attribute. This is equivalent to "stacking" the array in the data.frame, and lets you continue to manipulate the remaining JSON in the elements of the array. For simple arrays, use append_values_* to capture all of the values of the array. For more complex arrays (where the values are themselves objects or arrays), continue using other tidyjson functions to structure the data as needed.

Value

a tbl_json with a new column (column.name) that captures the array index and JSON attribute extracted from the array

Examples

library(magrittr)  # for %>%
'[1, "a", {"k": "v"}]' %>% gather_array %>% json_types

sailthru/tidyjson documentation built on May 29, 2019, 12:59 p.m.