How to parse an array inside a string into a javascript arrray

Question

I have a string received from a database call as follows:

"[{'url':'https://www.example.com/','category':'popular'},{'url':'https://example2.com/','category':'new'}]"

I would like to parse the string into a typescript/JS array so that it is as follows:

[
   {'url':'https://www.example.com/','category':'popular'}, 
   {'url':'https://example2.com/','category':'new'}
]

How can I go about doing this? JSON.parse won't work as the string does not resemble a stringified JSON. Thanks!

Cerbrus · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-09 09:55:16Z

4

Assuming there are no strings in it containing ', you can replace all occurrences of the single quote with double quotes, then you can parse it:

const str = "[{'url':'https://www.example.com/','category':'popular'},{'url':'https://example2.com/','category':'new'}]";

const arr = JSON.parse(str.replace(/'/g,'"'));

console.log(arr);

answered Sep 9, 2021 at 9:55

Cerbrus

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2 Comments

kol Over a year ago

Just curious: What would you do to handle inner ' characters? Say you have "Joe's Bar" in one of the fields.

Cerbrus Over a year ago

@kol: Then the regex would have to get a lot more complex, as it would have to consider word boundaries, or look for single quotes next to JSON "delimiters" like []{}:,

Puwka · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-09 09:57:40Z

1

Replace single quotes with double quotes then JSON.parse

JSON.parse(
"[{'url':'https://www.example.com/','category':'popular'},{'url':'https://example2.com/','category':'new'}]"
.replace(/\'/g, '"')
)

answered Sep 9, 2021 at 9:57

Puwka

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