how to convert CSV (with array and dictionary) values to JSON

Question

can someone please advice how I can convert a CSV file with arrays and dictionaries to JSON. I've looked at some similar questions without much success, since they don't address conversion of arrays and dictionaries.

here is a sample CSV text which has arrays and dictionaries, also find excel file (shown as image) from which I created this CSV text.

For explanation purposes, I have limited number of fields and the complexity. I wonder if there is a snippet of code or tool converter that can do the job of conversion.

FYI: I am collecting the info in excel file, converting into CSV file to load it on to the database.

firstName,lastName,address
John,Baker,Newyork
Paul,Fisher,Paris
Gabriel,Solksi,[location:London, postcode:EC17DC]
Laurene,smith,{location:Beijing, pincode:512389, alternateNames:[risingCity, futureCity]}

Answer 1

have a look here http://jsfiddle.net/sturtevant/AZFvQ/. This link has the code you require to convert CSV text to JSON.

You can also refer to products available in market like PapaParse

function CSVToArray(strData, strDelimiter) {
    // Check to see if the delimiter is defined. If not,
    // then default to comma.
    strDelimiter = (strDelimiter || ",");
    // Create a regular expression to parse the CSV values.
    var objPattern = new RegExp((
    // Delimiters.
    "(\\" + strDelimiter + "|\\r?\\n|\\r|^)" +
    // Quoted fields.
    "(?:\"([^\"]*(?:\"\"[^\"]*)*)\"|" +
    // Standard fields.
    "([^\"\\" + strDelimiter + "\\r\\n]*))"), "gi");
    // Create an array to hold our data. Give the array
    // a default empty first row.
    var arrData = [[]];
    // Create an array to hold our individual pattern
    // matching groups.
    var arrMatches = null;
    // Keep looping over the regular expression matches
    // until we can no longer find a match.
    while (arrMatches = objPattern.exec(strData)) {
        // Get the delimiter that was found.
        var strMatchedDelimiter = arrMatches[1];
        // Check to see if the given delimiter has a length
        // (is not the start of string) and if it matches
        // field delimiter. If id does not, then we know
        // that this delimiter is a row delimiter.
        if (strMatchedDelimiter.length && (strMatchedDelimiter != strDelimiter)) {
            // Since we have reached a new row of data,
            // add an empty row to our data array.
            arrData.push([]);
        }
        // Now that we have our delimiter out of the way,
        // let's check to see which kind of value we
        // captured (quoted or unquoted).
        if (arrMatches[2]) {
            // We found a quoted value. When we capture
            // this value, unescape any double quotes.
            var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[2].replace(
            new RegExp("\"\"", "g"), "\"");
        } else {
            // We found a non-quoted value.
            var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[3];
        }
        // Now that we have our value string, let's add
        // it to the data array.
        arrData[arrData.length - 1].push(strMatchedValue);
    }
    // Return the parsed data.
    return (arrData);
}

function CSV2JSON(csv) {
    var array = CSVToArray(csv);
    var objArray = [];
    for (var i = 1; i < array.length; i++) {
        objArray[i - 1] = {};
        for (var k = 0; k < array[0].length && k < array[i].length; k++) {
            var key = array[0][k];
            objArray[i - 1][key] = array[i][k]
        }
    }

    var json = JSON.stringify(objArray);
    var str = json.replace(/},/g, "},\r\n");

    return str;
}