JSON Deep Parse

Deeply parse heavily escaped and nested JSON

Sometimes you have a big blob of JSON and you parse it using JSON.parse(blob) and everything is great.

Other times, you receive a big blob of JSON that was other blobs of JSON within other blobs of JSON and you have no control over the fact that the JSON was deeply escaped but you want it deeply parsed. This lib is a non performant way to do that.

You probably don't need the dependency honestly, but this is available as a gem if you want it that way, scoot down to the next section.

Make a file in your app or lib and call it something cool like JSONDeepParse and then copy and paste the lib/json_deep_parse.rb from this repo.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem "json_deep_parse"

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install json_deep_parse

JSONDeepParse is a module with refinements. In order to use it you have to utilize the using keyword.

My specific use case which lead to this lib was an event consumer that was getting a deeply escaped JSON payload from a series of data transformations that I did not own and couldn't improve(to not nest escaped JSON).

require "json_deep_parse"

class SpecialParser
  using ::JSONDeepParse

  def self.parse(json_payload)
    JSON.deep_parse(json_payload)
  end
end

super_nested_json = "{\"topKey\":\"{\\\"nestedKey\\\":[\\\"{\\\\\\\"deeplyNestedKey\\\\\\\":{\\\\\\\"parseable\\\\\\\":true}}\\\",\\\"{\\\\\\\"deeplyNestedKey\\\\\\\":{\\\\\\\"parseable\\\\\\\":true}}\\\",\\\"{\\\\\\\"deeplyNestedKey\\\\\\\":{\\\\\\\"parseable\\\\\\\":true}}\\\"]}\"}"

# With JSON.parse
JSON.parse(super_nested_json)
=>
{
  "topKey"=>"{\"nestedKey\":[\"{\\\"deeplyNestedKey\\\":{\\\"parseable\\\":true}}\",\"{\\\"deeplyNestedKey\\\":{\\\"parseable\\\":true}}\",\"{\\\"deeplyNestedKey\\\":{\\\"parseable\\\":true}}\"]}"
}

# With JSON.deep_parse
SpecialParser.parse(super_nested_json)
=>
{
  "topKey" => {
    "nestedKey" => [
      {
        "deeplyNestedKey" => {
          "parseable" => true
        }
      },
      {
        "deeplyNestedKey" => {
          "parseable" => true
        }
      },
      {
        "deeplyNestedKey" => {
          "parseable" => true
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

JSONDeepParse refines the Ruby objects that are potentially in valid JSON and attempts to 'over' parse Strings, which does nothing with ordinary JSON but deeply escaped nested JSON will be deeply parsed.

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/bnbry/json_deep_parse. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Everyone interacting in the JsonDeepParse project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.