Parsing a colon-separated string into JSON in Node/Javascript

Question

I'm working on a Node server, and I used pdftk to extract field data from a PDF to be injected with form data.

I'm trying to get a JSON object of Field Names to iterate over, but I can't seem to get it right. It will likely need to be a loop, because it will change based what fields are in the PDF.

This is the string I have from the output.

---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t17[0]
FieldFlags: 8388608
FieldValue:
FieldJustification: Center
FieldMaxLength: 10
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t20[0]
FieldFlags: 8388608
FieldValue:
FieldJustification: Center
FieldMaxLength: 10
---
FieldType: Button
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-cb7[0]
FieldFlags: 0
FieldValue:
FieldJustification: Left
FieldStateOption: 1
FieldStateOption: Off
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t38[0]
FieldFlags: 8388608
FieldValue:
FieldJustification: Center
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t50[0]
FieldFlags: 8388608
FieldValue:
FieldJustification: Left

Would you recommend regex? What is the best way to go about this problem?

Answer 1

Use split repeatedly to break it down into its components:

var input = '---\n\
FieldType: Text\n\
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t17[0]\n\
FieldFlags: 8388608\n\
FieldValue:\n\
FieldJustification: Center\n\
FieldMaxLength: 10\n\
---\n\
FieldType: Text\n\
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t20[0]\n\
FieldFlags: 8388608\n\
FieldValue:\n\
FieldJustification: Center\n\
FieldMaxLength: 10\n\
---\n\
FieldType: Button\n\
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-cb7[0]\n\
FieldFlags: 0\n\
FieldValue:\n\
FieldJustification: Left\n\
FieldStateOption: 1\n\
FieldStateOption: Off\n\
---\n\
FieldType: Text\n\
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t38[0]\n\
FieldFlags: 8388608\n\
FieldValue:\n\
FieldJustification: Center\n\
---\n\
FieldType: Text\n\
FieldName: topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].p1-t50[0]\n\
FieldFlags: 8388608\n\
FieldValue:\n\
FieldJustification: Left';

var fields = [];
var field_strings = input.split(/[\r\n]*---[\r\n]*/);
for (var i = 0; i < field_strings.length; i++) {
    if (field_strings[i] == '') { // Skip blank field at beginning
        continue;
    }
    var obj = {};
    var props_strings = field_strings[i].split('\n');
    for (var j = 0; j < props_strings.length; j++) {
        var keyvalue = props_strings[j].split(':');
        obj[keyvalue[0]] = keyvalue[1].trim();
    }
    fields.push(obj);
}
console.log(fields);