LoanCrate JSON Selectors

LoanCrate JSON Selectors are based on a subset of JMESPath with the following additions:

• A shorthand/extension for selecting an object from an array based on ID.
• A root-node expression, as added in the JMESPath Community Edition.

Currently, the subset includes everything except functions, object projections (* wildcard not within brackets), and multi-select lists and hashes. The library passes all of the JMESPath compliance tests not using those specific features.

To allow for selection by ID, we extend index expressions to accept a raw string literal (as opposed to a numeric literal), which represents the value of the id property of the desired object from an array of objects. Formally, x['y'] would be equivalent to x[?id == 'y'] | [0] in JMESPath. This should be unambiguous relative to the existing grammar and semantics.

In addition to the extensions above, this library offers the following features compared to jmespath.js:

• Written using Typescript and PEG.js for clarity and correctness
• Type definitions for the abstract syntax tree (AST) produced by the parser
• Typed visitor pattern for accessing AST nodes
• Formatting of an AST back into an expression string
• Read/write/delete accessors allow modification of the input data referenced by a selector
• Detailed error reporting for syntax errors

Installation

npm add @loancrate/json-selector

Usage

import {
  accessWithJsonSelector,
  parseJsonSelector,
} from "@loancrate/json-selector";

const obj = {
  foo: {
    bar: [
      {
        id: "x",
        value: 1,
      },
    ],
  },
};
const selector = parseJsonSelector("foo.bar['x'].value");
const accessor = accessWithJsonSelector(selector, obj);
console.log(accessor.get()); // 1
console.log(obj.foo.bar[0].value); // 1
accessor.set(2);
console.log(obj.foo.bar[0].value); // 2
accessor.delete();
console.log(obj.foo.bar[0].value); // undefined

Operator Precedence

As mentioned above, JSON Selectors are based on JMESPath. Although JMESPath claims to have an "ABNF grammar with a complete specification", the specification is not complete regarding operator precedence, since it only mentions the relative precedence of 5 tokens (|, ||, &&, !, and ]). To discover the precedence of other operators, we must turn to the JMESPath source code. It is implemented as a Top-Down Operator Precedence (TDOP) parser, which is based on principles like "token binding power", "null denotation" (nud), and "left denotation" (led). Given knowledge of these principles and the binding power table from the source, we can reverse-engineer the operator precedence of JMESPath.

Essentially, the expression grammar is structured as a left-hand side (LHS) expression followed by zero or more right-hand side (RHS) expressions (which are often projections on the result of the LHS). RHS expressions are consumed by the parser and projected onto the LHS as long as they have the same or higher binding power as the LHS. RHS expressions with lower binding power are projected onto the result of the overall expression to the left, as opposed to the nearest subexpression. For example, since dot (40) has a higher binding power than left bracket (55), a.b.c['id'].d.e is parsed and evaluated like ((a.b.c)['id']).d.e. Binding power and precedence can be summarized as follows, in increasing order:

• pipe: |
• or: ||
• and: &&
• compare: <=, >=, <, >, ==, !=
• not: !
• flatten projection: []
• filter projection: [?
• star/slice projection: [*, [<number?>:
• index/ID access: [<number>, ['
• member access: .

However, as a special case, member access can directly follow (act as RHS) for any projection.

License

This library is available under the ISC license.