Node.js - Remove null elements from JSON object

Question

I am trying to remove null/empty elements from JSON objects, similar to the functionality of the python webutil/util.py -> trim_nulls method. Is there something built in to Node that I can use, or is it a custom method.

Example:

var foo = {a: "val", b: null, c: { a: "child val", b: "sample", c: {}, d: 123 } };

Expected Result:

foo = {a: "val", c: { a: "child val", b: "sample", d: 123 } };

Answer 1

I don't know why people were upvoting my original answer, it was wrong (guess they just looked too quick, like I did). Anyway, I'm not familiar with node, so I don't know if it includes something for this, but I think you'd need something like this to do it in straight JS:

var remove_empty = function ( target ) {

  Object.keys( target ).map( function ( key ) {

    if ( target[ key ] instanceof Object ) {

      if ( ! Object.keys( target[ key ] ).length && typeof target[ key ].getMonth !== 'function') {

        delete target[ key ];

      }

      else {

        remove_empty( target[ key ] );

      }

    }

    else if ( target[ key ] === null ) {

      delete target[ key ];

    }

  } );


  return target;

};

remove_empty( foo );

I didn't try this with an array in foo -- might need extra logic to handle that differently.

Answer 2

You can use like this :

Object.keys(foo).forEach(index => (!foo[index] && foo[index] !== undefined) && delete foo[index]);