unstrungify

Walk a hierarchical object as JSON.stringify does but without serializing.

Synopsis

unstrungify.call(object, preserve)

where:

• object is the context (the this value), which is the object to be walked
• preserve is an optional boolean (defaults to false)

Usage

var unstrungify = require('unstrungify');
function myAPI() { /* ... */ };
myAPI.prototype.getState = unstrungify;
var instance = new myAPI();
var state = instance.getState();

or without an API:

var unstrungify = require('unstrungify');
var myObject = { /* ... */ };
var state = unstrungify.call(myObject);

Description

Recursively walks the object tree.

For each node:

• calls .toJSON() when available (see below)
• Otherwise clones the node

Returns a new object representing the context object.

Functionally identical to JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(this)) but far more efficient because it skips the serialization and parse steps.

What the heck is this toJSON?

Learn more about JSON.stringify()'s toJSON behavior.

Undefined array elements

When precise index position in arrays is important, call with truthy preserve parameter.

Cross-frame scripting caveat!

This function comes with its own unstrungify.isArray() which is very fast but does not work for cross-frame scripting. In that case you can use the following (much slower) function:

unstrungify.isArray = unstrungify.crossFramesIsArray;

Or, if you have jQuery loaded, you might use it's (reasonably fast) duck typing function:

unstrungify.isArray = jQuery.isArray;

If you are not doing any cross-frame scripting and speed is not an issue, you don't need this.