Getting nested obj value

Question

Given the following obj:

var inputMapping = {
 nonNestedItem: \"someItem here\",
 sections: {
   general: \"Some general section information\" 
 }
};


        

Answer 1

You can use Array.prototype.reduce function like this

var accessString = "sections.general";

console.log(accessString.split(".").reduce(function(previous, current) {
    return previous[current];
}, inputMapping));

Output

Some general section information

If your environment doesn't support reduce, you can use this recursive version

function getNestedItem(currentObject, listOfKeys) {
    if (listOfKeys.length === 0 || !currentObject) {
        return currentObject;
    }
    return getNestedItem(currentObject[listOfKeys[0]], listOfKeys.slice(1));
}
console.log(getNestedItem(inputMapping, "sections.general".split(".")));

Answer 2

You don't need to use eval() here. You can just use [] to get values from an object. Use a temp object to hold the current value, then update it each time you need the next key.

function getNode(mapping, name) {
    var n = name.split(".");

    if (n.length === 1) {
        return mapping[name];
    } else {
        var tmp = mapping;
        for (var i = 0; i < n.length; i++) {
            tmp = tmp[n[i]];
        }
        return tmp;
    }
}