JSON package

The JSON package is useful for working with JSON data. It allows you to effectively manipulate the JSON data, such as adding or updating values within a JSON string, parsing JSON strings into objects using node path, and converting JSON strings to dictionaries and vice versa.

This package plays a crucial role in seamlessly integrating automation workflows with web services and APIs that use JSON for data exchange.

Benefits

  • JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight, easy-to-understand, extensible format for storing, transporting, and retrieving data. JSON uses key-value pairs of data and delivers faster data interchange and web service results.
  • Most REST Web Services (APIs), some configuration files, and many NoSQL databases such as MongoDB commonly use JSON because of its flexible format for data exchange. It is text-based, lightweight, and has an easy-to-parse data format, which means it requires no additional code to understand and interpret the provided data.
  • JSON files can be great for storing and retrieving configuration data your automation might reference when determining server, environment-specific, or folder-share details.
  • JSON's flexible structure efficiently accommodates various data types and complex data hierarchies.

JSON data types

The values in JSON must be of following data type:
  • Strings
  • Numbers
  • Object (JSON Object)
  • Array
  • Booleans
Note: The value NULL is not supported in Automation 360. Therefore, when you extract JSON data and convert it to a dictionary variable, any null values in the JSON string are not converted, as dictionary variables do not support null values. However, if the JSON contains an empty string ("") instead of null, it will be successfully converted to a dictionary variable.

Understanding JSON structures

In JSON, data is mainly stored in two structures:
  • Objects: Objects in JSON are collections of key, value pairs enclosed in curly braces {}. Each key is a string enclosed with quotes (““) followed by a colon (:) , and commas (,) are used to separate the key, value pairs.

    Example: {"name ": "John", "age": "30", "city": Detroit}

  • Arrays: Arrays are ordered lists of values, enclosed in square brackets []. Values within an array are separated by commas (,).

    Example: ["John", "Annie", "Shane"]

Using JSON package

Use the actions in the JSON package in the following order:
  1. Start the JSON session using the Start session action. Use this session name for all corresponding actions.
  2. Use the different actions available in the JSON package to automate JSON related tasks.
  3. End the session using the End session action to complete a task.

Actions in the JSON package

The JSON package includes the following actions:

Action Description
Add node value See Add node value.
Convert Dictionary to JSON See Convert Dictionary to JSON.
End session See End session action in JSON.
Get node list See Get node list action in JSON.
Get node value See Get node value action in JSON.
Convert JSON to Dictionary See Convert JSON to Dictionary.
Start session See Start session action in JSON.
Update node value See Update node value.

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