JSONata Add external object to array of objects

Question

With JSONata how do I add external data to an existing array, I have an array of phone numbers, I want to call them communications, I can create the array but I want to add the email as a communications type but its outside of the array.

"customer": {
"email": "joe@home.com",
"doNotEmail":"true",
"phones": [
      {
        "key": "0",
        "number": "2222222222",
        "preferredContactTime": "UNKNOWN",
        "sendTextMessages": false,
        "type": "HOME"
      },
      {
        "key": "1",
        "number": "3333333333",
        "preferredContactTime": "UNKNOWN",
        "sendTextMessages": false,
        "type": "HOME"
      },
      {
        "key": "2",
        "number": "2222222222",
        "preferredContactTime": "UNKNOWN",
        "sendTextMessages": false,
        "type": "HOME"
      }
    ]
}

Tried:

"communication": $append(customer.phones.{
"channelType": "Phone",
"channelCode": type,
"completeNumber": number
},{$$.customer.email, $$.customer.privacy.okToContact),

Expeting:

"communication": [
    {
        "emailAddress": "joe@home.com",
        "channelType": "Email",
        "channelCode": "Personal",
        "privacy": [
            {
                "okToContact": true
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "channelType": "Phone",
        "channelCode": "Home",
        "completeNumber": "222-222-2222"
    },
    {
        "channelType": "Phone",
        "channelCode": "Home",
        "completeNumber": "333-333-3333"
    },
    {
        "channelType": "Phone",
        "channelCode": "Home",
        "completeNumber": "222-222-2222"
    }
]

Answer 1

You want to build your array of phones using the Object constructor -- $.customer.phones.(...) : returns Array -- and then pass that result to the $append() function with an Array containing your email object.

It looks like your main problem was attempting to provide a non-array (object) to $append() along with a few bracket matching issues.

Corrected example:

{
    "communication": $append(customer.phones.{
        "channelType": "Phone",
        "channelCode": type,
        "completeNumber": number
    },[ /* You were missing the square brackets here to denote an array */
        {
            "emailAddress": $$.customer.email, 
            "privacy": [
                {"okToContact": $$.customer.doNotEmail}
            ]
        }
    ])
}

Corrected Playground: https://try.jsonata.org/xla-fmgxt

---

I went a little overboard and took the liberty of making a few changes to your query. Feel free to ignore everything below.

{
    "communication": $append(
        [{
            "emailAddress": customer.email,
            "channelType": "Email", /* Does not appear in data -- assuming hardcode*/
            "channelCode": "Personal", /* Does not appear in data -- assuming hardcode*/
            "privacy": [
                {
                    /* I'm assuming this is what you meant, since it's NOT ok to email them */
                    "okToContact": $.customer.doNotEmail = "false" 
                }
            ]
        }],
        $.customer.phones.(
            /* Defining a format function here -- Just an example, you can probably do this better */
            $formatPhone := function($v) { $v and $length($v) = 10 ? $substring($v, 0, 3) & '-' & $substring($v, 3, 3) & '-' & $substring($v, 6, 4)  : "" };
            { 
                "channelType": "Phone", /* Does not appear in data -- assuming hardcode*/
                "channelCode": type, 
                "completeNumber": $formatPhone(number)
            }
        )
    )
}

Note: The phone formatting appeared out-of-scope for this question, so I just added a simple function for completeness. You probably want to use something a bit better than I provided for your production code.

Output:

{
  "communication": [
    {
      "emailAddress": "joe@home.com",
      "channelType": "Email",
      "channelCode": "Personal",
      "privacy": [
        {
          "okToContact": false
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "channelType": "Phone",
      "channelCode": "HOME",
      "completeNumber": "222-222-2222"
    },
    {
      "channelType": "Phone",
      "channelCode": "HOME",
      "completeNumber": "333-333-3333"
    },
    {
      "channelType": "Phone",
      "channelCode": "HOME",
      "completeNumber": "222-222-2222"
    }
  ]
}

Working Playground: https://try.jsonata.org/ozzmi3C4X