Fastest way to flatten / un-flatten nested JSON objects

Question

I threw some code together to flatten and un-flatten complex/nested JSON objects. It works, but it\'s a bit slow (triggers the \'long script\' warning).

For the flat

Answer 1

Here's mine. It runs in <2ms in Google Apps Script on a sizable object. It uses dashes instead of dots for separators, and it doesn't handle arrays specially like in the asker's question, but this is what I wanted for my use.

function flatten (obj) {
  var newObj = {};
  for (var key in obj) {
    if (typeof obj[key] === 'object' && obj[key] !== null) {
      var temp = flatten(obj[key])
      for (var key2 in temp) {
        newObj[key+"-"+key2] = temp[key2];
      }
    } else {
      newObj[key] = obj[key];
    }
  }
  return newObj;
}

Example:

var test = {
  a: 1,
  b: 2,
  c: {
    c1: 3.1,
    c2: 3.2
  },
  d: 4,
  e: {
    e1: 5.1,
    e2: 5.2,
    e3: {
      e3a: 5.31,
      e3b: 5.32
    },
    e4: 5.4
  },
  f: 6
}

Logger.log("start");
Logger.log(JSON.stringify(flatten(test),null,2));
Logger.log("done");

Example output:

[17-02-08 13:21:05:245 CST] start
[17-02-08 13:21:05:246 CST] {
  "a": 1,
  "b": 2,
  "c-c1": 3.1,
  "c-c2": 3.2,
  "d": 4,
  "e-e1": 5.1,
  "e-e2": 5.2,
  "e-e3-e3a": 5.31,
  "e-e3-e3b": 5.32,
  "e-e4": 5.4,
  "f": 6
}
[17-02-08 13:21:05:247 CST] done