jquery.jpath.js

Inspired by xPath and jQuery selectors, jPath is an experimental plugin to allow easy browsing of JavaScript object, namely JSON objects. The goal is make it easy to pull/compare/search data from these object. Here's a simple example of how it's supposed to work.

Example

// .. some ajax call get a JSON object called "res"

// the conventional way to digg for data
if (res && res.employee && res.employee.name == 'Max') {
    alert(res.employee.name);
}

// with jpath
if ($(res).jpath('employee.name:is(Max)')) {
    alert($(res).jpath('employee.name');
}

Furthermore, in the above example the conventional way assume that employee.name is defined. But if the server returns a JSON object and the name isn't defined the script will throw an error. jPath will simply return false if either employee or name isn't defined, making it a bit more reliable.

Basic usage

var obj = {
    a: {
        b: 'yay', 
        c:[1,2,3]
    }
}

$(obj).jpath('a.b');           // return "yay" 
$(obj).jpath('a.b:match(ya)'); // return "true"
$(obj).jpath('a.c');           // returns [1,2,3]
$(obj).jpath('a.c:eq(2)');     // returns "3"

$.jpath.expr