eliminating line breaks in an array with javascript and regex

Question

I have a file that looks like so:

QUERY:1
DATABASE:geoquery
NL:What are the capitals of the states that border the most populated states?
SQL:something

QUERY:2
DATABASE:geoquery
NL:What are the capitals of the states bordering New York?
SQL:SELECT state.Capital FROM state JOIN borderinfo ON state.State_Name = borderinfo.State_Name          
WHERE borderinfo.Border = 'New York'

QUERY:3
DATABASE:geoquery
NL:Show the state capitals and populations.
SQL:SELECT state.Capital, state.Population FROM state

etc...

The person generating this file refuses to give it to me in a usable format like say, XML or JSON. So I am parsing it a couple of times with REGEX to get results I want.

Strip off Databases to populate select list (works fine):

$.get('inputQueryExamples.txt',
        function(data){
            var string = data;
            var dbDynamo ='';
            dbExp = new RegExp('(DATABASE:.*)','gm');
            dbDynamo = string.match(dbExp);
            cleanBreaks = new RegExp('(\r?\n|\r)','gm');
            stringNow = dbDynamo.toString();
            //console.log(dbDynamo);
            dbDynamo = dbDynamo.map(function(el){return el.replace('DATABASE:','');});

            var outArray = [];
            for(i=0; i < dbDynamo.length; i++){
                if ($.inArray(dbDynamo[i],outArray)== -1){
                    outArray.push(dbDynamo[i]);
                    }
                }

            dbDynamo = outArray.sort();

            var options = '';
            for(i=0; i<dbDynamo.length; i++){
                options += '<option value="' + dbDynamo[i] + '">' + dbDynamo[i] + '</option>';
            };
            $(select).append(options);


});

The problem comes when I parse a second time to get all of the strings associated with a specific database. I end up with a linebreak in front of every string so that when I fill a textarea with the autocomplete text it starts on the second line:

Array [ "

NL:Show company with complaint against Debt collection product.,DATABASE:consumer", "

NL:Show issues and dates of complaints about HSBC companies.,DATABASE:consumer", "

NL:Show companies, issues and dates with consumer concerns.,DATABASE:consumer", "

NL:Show issues and companies with complaints in MA state." ]

$(document).ready(function(){
        $.get('inputQueryExamples.txt',function(data){
            var queryString = data;
            var cleanString = "";
            var db = '';
            $('#database-list').change(function(){
               db = $('#database-list').val();

               // /(^DATABASE:.*\r\n)(^NL.*)/gm
               // http://regex101.com/r/mN4hS2

               regex = new RegExp('(^DATABASE:'+ db +'\r\n)(^NL.*)' ,'gm');

               cleanString = queryString.match(regex);
               //console.log(cleanString);
               //cleanBreaks = new RegExp('(\r\n|\r|\n)(^NL.*)','gm');
               //stringNow = cleanString.toString();
               //var dirtyString
               //dirtyString = stringNow.match(cleanBreaks);
               //console.log(dirtyString); 

               var nlString = cleanString.map(function(el) {return el.replace('DATABASE:' + db,'');});
               nlString = nlString.map(function(el){return el.replace('NL:',''); });
               //nlString = nlString.map(function(el){return      el.replace('\\r','').replace('\\n','');});

               console.log(nlString.pop());
               $('#query-list').autocomplete({
                source:nlString,

                }); 

             }); // end change

I have tried about everything I can think of to get rid of the linebreaks without success. Any ideas would be appreciated. Unfortunately the one where the server side just gives me data in a usable format is not viable. There is a lot of extra code in this just to give you an idea of what I have tried. I have commented out useless things. Thanks in advance.

DanArl · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-22 03:30:24Z

1

It would make sense to use JavaScript to parse the data-structure you are given into a JavaScript object first, then you can more easily work with the data.

Here is a jsfiddle that demonstrates parsing your data into a JavaScript object. Below is the relevant code that does the parsing:

var datasources = {};

var parseData = function(block) {
    var db = block.match(/DATABASE:(.*)/)[1];
    var dbdata = {id: 0, nl: "", sql: ""};

    if (!datasources[db]) {
        datasources[db] = [];
    }

    dbdata.id = block.match(/QUERY:(.*)/)[1];
    dbdata.nl = block.match(/NL:(.*)/)[1];
    dbdata.sql = block.match(/SQL:(.*)/)[1];

    datasources[db].push(dbdata);
};

var parseBlocks = function(data) {
    var result = data.split('\n\n');
    for(var i=0; i < result.length; i++) {
       parseData(result[i]);
    };
};

answered Sep 22, 2014 at 3:30

DanArl

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Comments

MJMacarty · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-23 17:03:35Z

0

Thanks for the very thoughtful and elegant approach. I continued the brute force approach.

replace:

nlString = nlString.map(function(el){return el.replace('NL:',''); });

with:

nlString = nlString.map(function(el){return el.replace('NL:','').trim(); });

answered Sep 23, 2014 at 17:03

MJMacarty

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