By category - JSON

This article documents the JSON tasks available in CIC Studio for use in Business Processes. Here's a simple overview:

• JSON - Create – Initializes a new, empty JSON object.
• JSON - Read From Type – Converts a String or Storage Node into a JSON object.
• JSON - Get – Retrieves a value from the root of a JSON object by name.
• JSON - Get By Pointer – Fetches a specific value from anywhere in a JSON object (including nested arrays/objects) using a path-style "pointer" string, without needing to loop through the data.
• JSON - Set – Adds or sets a value at the root of a JSON object under a given name.
• JSON - To Dictionary – Converts a JSON object into a Dictionary data type.
• JSON - To List – Converts a JSON array into a List data type (errors if the JSON isn't an array).
• JSON - To Storage Node – Converts a JSON object into a Storage Node.

In short: these are building-block tasks for creating, reading, extracting, modifying, and converting JSON data within a Cleo Business Process workflow.

Video: See the Community video on using JSON tasks in a Business Process.

Examples

Here's a simple usage example for each JSON task:

JSON - Create

This task initializes a JSON variable or parameter as an empty JSON body.

JSON - Read From Type

This task converts either a String or a Storage Node to a JSON object.

JSON - Get

This task gets an object (of type String, Long, Double Boolean, List, Dictionary, or JSON) from the root of the JSON object with the specified name.

JSON - Get By Pointer

The task can be used to fetch a particular value of a key in a JSON or a JSONArray without having to loop through the JSON using the JSON-Get task. 

The task accepts three Properties:

JSON: This is the input JSON. The allowed datatypes are JSON, StorageNode, or String. While the datatype can be any of the above three, the data must be valid JSON.

Pointer: A pointer identifies the path to a certain key to access; this can be any string literal or string variable.

• The pointer starts with /
• Each segment is separated by /
• Each segment can be interpreted as either an array index or an object key.
• If we want to access the first element in order_type which is a JSON array we can use the index (index starts from zero).

Pointer: /customer/order_type/0

In the given context, "customer" represents a JSON object, and "order_type" is a JSONArray that we wish to access. The "0" refers to the index of the specific element within that JSONArray.

Result: The result can be stored in the following datatypes: String, Long, Double, Boolean, List, Dictionary, or JSON.

Usage: Consider the following input JSON. If we want to access the value of the “email” key, here’s how the JSON Get By Pointer task could be used:

{
"id": 101,
"total_price_usd": "5.15",
"customer": {
"total_spent": "5.15",
"last_order_name": "#1050",
"last_order_id": 1012673151019,
"tax_exempt": false,
"created_at": "2018-03-08T16:04:34-05:00",
"last_name": "Geiger",
"verified_email": true,
"accepts_marketing_updated_at": "2018-12-31T11:06:21-05:00",
"tags": "password page, prospect",
"orders_count": 1,
"updated_at": "2019-04-09T14:53:13-04:00",
"accepts_marketing": true,
"admin_graphql_api_id": "gid://shopify/Customer/498608504875",
"currency": "USD",
"id": 498608504875,
“order_type”:[“PO”,”SO”,”ACK”],
"marketing_opt_in_level": "single_opt_in",
"state": "disabled",
"a/b": 1,
"first_name": "Will",
"email": "wgeiger@cleo.com"

} 
}

Here’s another example: If the input JSON contains some special characters in the key...

{
"orders": ["bar", "baz"],
"": 0,
"sales/order": 1,
"c%d": 2,
"LastOrder^Name": “gieger”,
"g|h": 4,
"i\\j": 5,
"k\"l": 6,
" ": 7,
"m~n": 8
}

...then the Pointers access the values as follows:

Error Reporting and Troubleshooting

If the Pointer is syntactically wrong and is not available in the input JSON, the appropriate log message will appear in the Auditor Log.

If the input JSON is empty or syntactically wrong, an appropriate log message will appear in the Auditor Log.

If it is not able to convert the output based on the datatype given in the result, an appropriate error will be shown.

JSON - Set

This task sets an object (of type String, Long, Double Boolean, List, Dictionary, or JSON) in the root of the JSON object with the specified name.

JSON - To Dictionary

This task converts a JSON object to a dictionary

JSON - To List

This task converts a JSON object to a list. Assumes the JSON object being converted is a JSON array, otherwise a runtime exception will be thrown.

JSON - To Storage Node

This task converts a JSON object to a Storage Node.