Merge JSON Instances

[xmljim]

As a JSON Developer I can merge a JSON instance into another JSON instance to create a single instance

Acceptance Criteria

• Definitions:

  • Primary: The JSON instance that will be used as the base instance for comparison
  • Secondary: The JSON instance the contains data to be pulled into the primary instance.

• JSONObject properties

  • Where there are no conflicts between the primary and secondary instances, i.e., , the data from the secondary instance is pulled into the primary
  • Where properties are equivalent, no additional action is needed
  • Where there are conflicts between properties of the same name and context, there will be three different conflict strategies that can be applied
    • Accept Secondary: The value of the secondary instance overrides the primary instance
    • Accept Primary: The value of the primary instance remains
    • Append: Append the value of the secondary using a new key (named [key name]_append)
  • Where properties are not equivalent, then it will depend on the data type
    • If the data types are the same (Primitive, Object, Array) then
      • For primitive value types (e.g., Strings, Numbers, Boolean, Null), the selected conflict strategy will be applied
      • For JSONObjects, the same merge rules will be applied recursively
      • For JSONArrays, the JSONArray merging rules will be applied recursively
    • If the data types are different, then the selected conflict strategy will be applied

• JSONArray items

  • Items will be evaluated by index position
  • The following Conflict Strategies can be applied to items
    • Insert Before: Insert the conflict item in the secondary array into the primary just before the item in the current position
    • Insert After: Insert the conflict item from the secondary array into the primary just after the item in the current position
    • Append: Append the conflict item from the secondary array to the end of the primary array
  • If both items at the same position are JSONObjects, then merging rules for JSONObjects are applied
  • If both items at the same position are JSONArrays, the the arrays will be merged using the JSONArray merging rules
  • If the items at the same position are a different data and value type then the selected Conflict Strategy will be applied.