Syntax of the BasicJSONSelection

A BasicJSONSelection defines the syntax that you can use to access data in a JSON object.

A BasicJSONSelection resembles a basic way for accessing data in JSON feeds. You can use this syntax in BasicJSONSelection based list-rendering profiles or directly in an [AttributeResource] tag in your HCL Web Content Manager designs.

A BasicJSONSelection is made up by a list of selectors that are separated by the period (.) character.

You can use the following types of selectors:

• Name selector

  This selector returns the JSON member with the name from the JSON object. You can apply this selector only to JSON objects but not to JSON arrays.

  The format of this selector is name1.name2. For the sample JSON object provided later, the BasicJSONSelection store.address.country returns United States of America.

• Index selector

  This selector returns a specific item from a JSON array. You can apply this selector only to JSON arrays. The format of this selector is [n] where n denotes the nth element in a JSON Array.

  For the sample JSON object provided later, the BasicJSONSelection store.book.[0].author returns Nigel Rees.

• Attribute selector

  This selector returns the first item from a JSON array that has a member the value of which matches the value that is specified in brackets. The format of this selector is [member=value] where member=value denotes the name of the member that has the value value. For the sample JSON object provided later, the BasicJSONSelection store.book.[category=fiction].author returns Evelyn Waugh.

Here is a sample JSON object:

{ "store": {
    "address":{
      "street": "Your Co Avanue",
      "city": "Your City",
      "zipcode": "12345",
      "state": "CA",
      "country": "United States of America"
    },
    "book": [ 
      { "category": "reference",
        "author": "Nigel Rees",
        "title": "Sayings of the Century",
        "isbn": "0-553-22222-3"},
      { "category": "fiction",
        "author": "Evelyn Waugh",
        "title": "Sword of Honour",
        "isbn": "0-553-11111-3"},
      { "category": "fiction",
        "author": "J. R. R. Tolkien",
        "title": "The Lord of the Rings",
        "isbn": "0-395-19395-8"}
    ]
    } 
}