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Need to strip JSON result before submitting to JQuery Autocomplete

I am using JQuery UI autocomplete to display some options taken from a JSON structure. I have a very simple stripped down example working here:

http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsontest.htm
If you type "te" in the form you will see a couple of options appear.

This is all working fine and the script loads the values from the following file:
http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsonoutput.htm

However in my actual implementation the JSON structure is generated within a page which contains full HTML structural tags and I need to somehow strip this out and only extract the JSON structure.

http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsonoutput2.htm
If you view source you will see what I mean.

http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsontest2.htm
If you try adding "te" in the above form you will see a parse error.

What I have done is to surround the JSON structure with container strings:
### START ###
### END ###

Ideally I would like to parse the output by splitting it to extract the contents.

So I am looking to do something like this:
var theresult=jsonoutput.split("### START ###")[1].split("### END ###")[0];

Somehow the above needs to be done before it is used by autocomplete. I hope this makes sense.

I am willing to look at other ways to achieve this. If I have to first grab the JSON structure into a variable, parse it then put it back into the autocomplete then so be it.

SOLUTION

leakim971

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mike99c

ASKER

Thanks leakin91, I applied your change here:
http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsontest3.htm

Unfortunately I still get the parse error. I am not sure if the syntax is actually correct.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

mike99c

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leakim971

1. yes, I was thinking you already receivng text...
2. split, why not... the regex do the same in one sh
3. yes, this what I used

the issue with my answer was the type:json instead text

mike99c

ASKER

OK just for the record I took leakim971's solution and replaced the dataType with "text".
http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsontest3b.htm

There is no parse error but nothing appears which suggests the regular expression may be the issue.

mccarl

Just to add something to this.... Maybe a more elegant way, rather than adding the START and END tags and doing splits and/or regex, is to use jQuery to parse the HTML itself. So for the above example, remove the START and END tags from the generated HTML wrapped JSON, and then use this line to extract the "data"...

data = $.parseJSON(  $(data).find('body').html()  );

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Obviously in your non-stripped down version, the JSON data may be located in a different place within the HTML content, but I'm sure you can work out how to change the above to select whatever is the correct element that holds your JSON.

mike99c

ASKER

Thanks mccarl. I have implemented your solution by creating a new data file here:
http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsonoutput3.htm

If you view source I have removed the container strings.

I then loaded this file from this page and updated the script as you suggeted:
http://www.dressorganic.co.uk/autocomplete/jsontest5.htm

If you try it now and type "te" the data value becomes null after trying to extract the html. I don't understand why it is not working as all appears to be correct.

mccarl

If you try it now and type "te" the data value becomes null after trying to extract the html.

My apologies, I wasn't able to easily test what I had written above, and it appears the jQuery (or more likely the browsers DOM manipulation) ignores some of the tags when parsing the HTML (like <html> <head> <body> etc).

However in my actual implementation the JSON structure is generated within a page which contains full HTML structural tags and I need to somehow strip this out and only extract the JSON structure.

If you try the code that I gave above with your ACTUAL full HTML structure, but just changing the jQuery selector expression from 'body' to whatever will select the HTML element that contains your JSON, you should find that it just works. It doesn't work in this simplified version that you are testing with because, as stated above, the <body> element is being ignored and so jQuery can't select it.

eg. I tried an example like this...

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Utilities</title>
</head>
<body>
  <div>
    <p>{"products":[{"ID":100,"ReferenceID":"TST001","Name":"Product 1"},{"ID":101,"ReferenceID":"TST002","Name":"Product 2"},{"ID":102,"ReferenceID":"TST003","Name":"Product 3"}]}</p>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

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... with the following line ...

data = $.parseJSON(  $(data).find('p').html()  );

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... and it worked perfectly fine!

leakim971

data = $.parseJSON( data.match(/({.*})/).pop() );

mike99c

ASKER

The original response from leakim971 which although incorrect did in fact point in the right direction as I needed to intercept the data parameter before extracting the JSON structure before parsing it.