Unable to Access data from json object

Question

I have stored json data structure in a dataframe with single column, named json_data in R so my json text is stored in this format

row 1)    { \         


        

Answer 1

Here is one possibility:

library(rjson)

json_data <- fromJSON(file = json_file)
formatted_add <- lapply(json_data$results, function(x) x$formatted_add)
lat <- lapply(json_data$results, function(x) x$geometry$location$lat)
lng <- lapply(json_data$results, function(x) x$geometry$location$lng)

data <- cbind(formatted_add, lat, lng)

I hope this is what you need.

Answer 2

OK, after the clarification, what you have is a JSON string per each row of the data.frame

To recreate the data, I'm taking the single JSON string (row) you provided, and putting it in two rows of a data.frame

Therefore, to access the data, you need to parse each row of the data.frame individually

However, in your question, you ask for the "first occurrence of formatted_address under location". In the row of data you've given, there are seven different locations, which you can see by the number of place_id values, and there is only one formatted_address per place_id. So asking for the first occurrence doesn't make sense, as there is only one.

library(jsonlite)

js <- '{
                 "results": [{
                       "address_components": [{
                       "long_name": "Unnamed Road",
                       "short_name": "Unnamed Road",
                       "types": ["route"]
                       }, {
                       .... <i've omitted the rest of the text> ...
                       },
                       "place_id": "ChIJkbeSa_BfYzARphNChaFPjNc",
                        "types": ["country", "political"]
                       }],
                        "status": "OK"
                       }'

json_data_df <- data.frame(json_data = c(js, js))

## if parsing a row individually you would do
# json_result <- fromJSON(as.character(json_data_df[1, "json_data"]))

## as you're parsing each row of the data.frame, you can use whatever looping 
## method you like

## you can get all the data out of the JSON and create a list obect of everything
lst <- lapply(1:nrow(json_data_df), function(x){
  fromJSON(as.character(json_data_df[x, 'json_data']))
})


## or you can subset it within the loop to just get the bits you want
lst <- lapply(1:nrow(json_data_df), function(x){
  js <- fromJSON(as.character(json_data_df[x, 'json_data']))
  data.frame(
    place_id = js$results$place_id,
    formatted_address = js$results$formatted_address,
    lat = js$results$geometry$location$lat,
    lng = js$results$geometry$location$lng
    )
})

lst
# [[1]]
#                      place_id                          formatted_address      lat      lng
# 1 ChIJYWQws23rDzkRsqz31TNCwXg         Unnamed Road, Punjab 160003, India 30.65761 76.79439
# 2 ChIJN3sGJEHrDzkRwGZ1GMXBa2Q                      Bhabat, Punjab, India 30.65752 76.80578
# 3 ChIJcb4-lILsDzkRJIQJTpsMm8w Chandigarh Airport Area, Chandigarh, India 30.67833 76.78847
# 4 ChIJf560w6fsDzkRXLKn0s52kHM                              160004, India 30.65827 76.78559
# 5 ChIJOyhuuFPlDzkRzrRj0bvdZPw  Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, Punjab, India 30.64965 76.75674
# 6 ChIJVXOeVqpkGTkRYYijAzEmvY8                              Punjab, India 31.14713 75.34122
# 7 ChIJkbeSa_BfYzARphNChaFPjNc                                      India 20.59368 78.96288
# 
# [[2]]
#                      place_id                          formatted_address      lat      lng
# 1 ChIJYWQws23rDzkRsqz31TNCwXg         Unnamed Road, Punjab 160003, India 30.65761 76.79439
# 2 ChIJN3sGJEHrDzkRwGZ1GMXBa2Q                      Bhabat, Punjab, India 30.65752 76.80578
# 3 ChIJcb4-lILsDzkRJIQJTpsMm8w Chandigarh Airport Area, Chandigarh, India 30.67833 76.78847
# 4 ChIJf560w6fsDzkRXLKn0s52kHM                              160004, India 30.65827 76.78559
# 5 ChIJOyhuuFPlDzkRzrRj0bvdZPw  Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, Punjab, India 30.64965 76.75674
# 6 ChIJVXOeVqpkGTkRYYijAzEmvY8                              Punjab, India 31.14713 75.34122
# 7 ChIJkbeSa_BfYzARphNChaFPjNc                                      India 20.59368 78.96288

---

As per the comments - to access just the first entry per each JSON object, you can just subset the first element in the lapply

## or you can subset it within the loop to just get the bits you want
lst <- lapply(1:nrow(json_data_df), function(x){
  js <- fromJSON(as.character(json_data_df[x, 'json_data']))
  data.frame(
    place_id = js$results$place_id[1],
    formatted_address = js$results$formatted_address[1],
    lat = js$results$geometry$location$lat[1],
    lng = js$results$geometry$location$lng[1]
  )
})
lst

# [[1]]
#                      place_id                  formatted_address      lat      lng
# 1 ChIJYWQws23rDzkRsqz31TNCwXg Unnamed Road, Punjab 160003, India 30.65761 76.79439

# [[2]]
#                      place_id                  formatted_address      lat      lng
# 1 ChIJYWQws23rDzkRsqz31TNCwXg Unnamed Road, Punjab 160003, India 30.65761 76.79439