Having trouble parsing JSON structure with JSON package

[David Karr]

I have a web service that returns XML or JSON, and I'm trying to write somecode to verify the JSON form of the response. The XML verification is already working.

The JSON looks somewhat like this (some long lists of properties replaced by "..."):

{"sl.serviceCallResults":{"@latestTime":"1371493703000","sl.services":{"sl.service":[{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.8552632",...},{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.875",...},{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.8116788",...},{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.82133335",...},{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.81842816",...},{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.7983539",...},{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.84782606",...},{"@last15SuccessRate":"0.0",...}]},"sl.workflows":{"sl.workflow":[{"@latestTime":"1371493703000",...}]},"sl.failureExpressions":{"sl.failureExpression":["Data Error","stuff"]}}}]

At this point, I'm simply trying to count the number of entries in the "sl.service" array.

This is what I've hacked together so far:

sub countJSONServices($) {
my ($jsonText) = @_;
my $json = JSON->new->allow_nonref;
my $scalar = from_json($jsonText);
printhash($scalar);
my $serviceCallResults = $scalar->{"sl.serviceCallResults"};
#print "serviceCallResults[" . $serviceCallResults . "]\n";
printhash($serviceCallResults);
my $services = $serviceCallResults->{"sl.services"};
printhash($services);
my $servicesList = $services->{"sl.service"};
print "servicesList[$servicesList]\n";
for my $service (@servicesList) {
print "service[$service]\n";
}
my $servicesCount = scalar @servicesList;
print "servicesCount[$servicesCount]\n";
return $servicesCount;
}

Where "printhash()" simply is this:

sub printhash($) {
my ($hash) = @_;
while ( my ($key, $value) = each(%{$hash}) ) {
print "$key => $value\n";
}
}

The output I have at this point is this:
--------------
sl.serviceCallResults => HASH(0x20d49990)
@latestTime => 1371496045000
sl.workflows => HASH(0x20a0d2d8)
sl.services => HASH(0x20a389d8)
sl.failureExpressions => HASH(0x20a0d260)
sl.service => ARRAY(0x20a2bb48)
servicesList[ARRAY(0x20a2bb48)]
servicesCount[0]

 

[David Karr]

This line does nothing useful. Why is it there?

Obsolete artifact. Removed now.

my $scalar = from_json($jsonText);

my $serviceCallResults = $scalar->{"sl.serviceCallResults"};

#print "serviceCallResults[" . $serviceCallResults . "]\n";

printhash($serviceCallResults);

my $services = $serviceCallResults->{"sl.services"};

printhash($services);

my $servicesList = $services->{"sl.service"};

print "servicesList[$servicesList]\n";

for my $service (@servicesList) {

You're not using 'strict'. Bad programmer, no cookie!



$servicesList and @servicesList are completely different variables. You

want to deref the arrayref in $servicesList, that is, @$servicesList.



(You might want to consider using less verbose variable names. That much

repetition makes the code extremely hard to read.)

print "service[$service]\n";

}

my $servicesCount = scalar @servicesList;

print "servicesCount[$servicesCount]\n";

return $servicesCount;


Where "printhash()" simply is this:

sub printhash($) {

my ($hash) = @_;

while ( my ($key, $value) = each(%{$hash}) ) {

print "$key => $value\n";

}

You might want to consider using Data:umper or Data:ump instead.



Ben

Got it. Cleaned up now, and it's working. Thanks.