Parse Hexed JSON Object

Question

We have an app that generates complex JSON objects whose properties and values have been converted to hexadecimals. How can I revert them them to strings?

Sample Object:

{
    "636f756e747279": 
    {
        "6e616d65": "43616e616461",
        "636f6465": "4341"
    },
    "617574686f72":
    {
        "6e616d65": "4a61736d696e652048656174686572",
        "67656e646572": "66",
        "626f6f6b496473":
        [
            "6a65683233696f",
            "33393233393130"
        ]
    }
}

Code so far:

var data = require( './data.json' );
var parsed = {};

Object.keys( data ).forEach( function( key, index, keys )
{
    var prop = new Buffer( key, 'hex' ).toString();
    var value = new Buffer( data[ key ], 'hex' ).toString();

    parsed[ prop ] = value;
});

console.log( parsed );

But this code only works on simple JSON objects with simple key-value pairs.

Answer 1

You need to do type check and recursion. Although this code did not use it, I also suggest you to use underscore.js to simplify looping and type checking.

var data = {
  "636f756e747279":
  {
    "6e616d65": "43616e616461",
    "636f6465": "4341"
  },
  "617574686f72":
  {
    "6e616d65": "4a61736d696e652048656174686572",
    "67656e646572": "66",
    "626f6f6b496473":
    [
        "6a65683233696f",
        "33393233393130"
    ]
  }
};

var unpack = function(hex) {
  return new Buffer( hex, 'hex' ).toString();
};

var convert_object = function(data) {
  if (typeof data === 'string') {
    return unpack(data);
  } else if (Array.isArray( data )) {
    return data.map(convert_object);
  } else if (typeof data === 'object') {
    var parsed = {};

    Object.keys( data ).forEach( function( key, index, keys ) {
       parsed[ unpack(key) ] = convert_object( data[key]);
    });

    return parsed;
  } else {
    throw ("Oops! we don't support type: " + (typeof data));
  }
};

console.log( convert_object(data) );