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47
Is there something like a spreadsheet for hierarchical data structures? (lemmy.radio)
submitted 6 days ago by early_riser@lemmy.radio to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I want to create, sort, filter, query, update, etc. hierarchical data like JSON or XML or YAML with the same ease as a spreadsheet. Does such a thing exist?

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 12 points 6 days ago (4 children)

That’s generally what relational databases are for. You might try LibreOffice Base or sqlite.

As for JSON, XML, and YAML files in particular, there are tools for doing one-off queries/transformations against them, like jq and yq.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 0 points 6 days ago (3 children)

That’s generally what relational databases are for.

But they need rectangular structure. How do they work on tree structures, like OP has asked?

one-off queries/transformations

Again, that wasn't the question.

[–] my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The question reads like an XY problem, they describe DB functions for data structures so unless there's some specific reason they can't use a DB that's the right answer. A "spreadsheet for data structures" describes a relational database.

But they need rectangular structure. How do they work on tree structures, like OP has asked?

Relationships. You don't dump all your data in a single table. Take for instance the following sample JSON:

JSON

  "users": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "Alice",
      "email": "alice@example.com",
      "favorites": {
        "games": [
          {
            "title": "The Witcher 3",
            "platforms": [
              {
                "name": "PC",
                "release_year": 2015,
                "rating": 9.8
              },
              {
                "name": "PS4",
                "release_year": 2015,
                "rating": 9.5
              }
            ],
            "genres": ["RPG", "Action"]
          },
          {
            "title": "Minecraft",
            "platforms": [
              {
                "name": "PC",
                "release_year": 2011,
                "rating": 9.2
              },
              {
                "name": "Xbox One",
                "release_year": 2014,
                "rating": 9.0
              }
            ],
            "genres": ["Sandbox", "Survival"]
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "name": "Bob",
      "email": "bob@example.com",
      "favorites": {
        "games": [
          {
            "title": "Fortnite",
            "platforms": [
              {
                "name": "PC",
                "release_year": 2017,
                "rating": 8.6
              },
              {
                "name": "PS5",
                "release_year": 2020,
                "rating": 8.5
              }
            ],
            "genres": ["Battle Royale", "Action"]
          },
          {
            "title": "Rocket League",
            "platforms": [
              {
                "name": "PC",
                "release_year": 2015,
                "rating": 8.8
              },
              {
                "name": "Switch",
                "release_year": 2017,
                "rating": 8.9
              }
            ],
            "genres": ["Sports", "Action"]
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

You'd structure that in SQL tables something like this:

Tables

dbo.users

user_id name email
1 Alice alice@example.com
2 Bob bob@example.com

dbo.games

game_id title genre
1 The Witcher 3 RPG
2 Minecraft Sandbox
3 Fortnite Battle Royale
4 Rocket League Sports

dbo.favorites

user_id game_id
1 1
1 2
2 3
2 4

dbo.platforms

platform_id game_id name release_year rating
1 1 PC 2015 9.8
2 1 PS4 2015 9.5
3 2 PC 2011 9.2
4 2 Xbox One 2014 9.0
5 3 PC 2017 8.6
6 3 PS5 2020 8.5
7 4 PC 2015 8.8
8 4 Switch 2017 8.9

The dbo.favorites table handles the many-to-many relationship between users and games; users can have as many favourite games as they want, and multiple users can have the same favourite game. The dbo.platforms handles one-to-many relationships; each record in this table represents a single release, but each game can have multiple releases on different platforms.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

So the real question was, which tool to use in order to transform the JSON's tree into these tables & relations?

(hopefully you didn't just write this all up manually! :-))

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago

There are tools out there to generate a SQL script from a JSON file that contains all the necessary DDL and DML statements to produce a database in full. I’m not familiar with any of them, though, so I can’t help there.

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