Alteryx and JSON : The "An array can't be at the top level" Discussion

Verakso

Hi Community,

I know there is plenty of answers on how to fix this, but this discussion is more, whether there is a "flaw" in the JSON Builder tool, or a discussion on what is valid JSON.

Take this JSON for example

[
  {
    "on": false,
    "type": "sms"
  },
  {
    "on": false,
    "type": "email"
  }
]

If you test it on eg. https://jsonlint.com/ it says JSON is valid!

Alteryx has not problem reading it either, but if you do a simple test like this:

You can see reading is fine, but you can't write the JSON back!!

And that is what baffles me. How come, you can read something that appears to be valid JSON, but you can't write JSON that way in Alteryx.

Yes I do know there is hacks to do this, but my question for discussion, should you be able to write the same JSON back natively?
Personally, it the assumption is, that the JSON in this example is valid, then there is a bug in the Alteryx JSON builder.

 /Thomas

json.yxzp

danilang

Hi @Verakso 

The JSON Build tool is taken from the Laboratory palette and if you look at the help page you'll find this text at the very top

Laboratory Tool

This is a Laboratory tool and isn't for production use. It might have documented known issues, might not be feature complete, and is subject to change.

I agree that the tool is not feature complete, with a search on "JSON build" bringing back pages of incorrect results.  On the other hand Alteryx does actually state that the tool is not production ready.  The tool is also not available OOB since you have to explicitly enable the Laboratory palette(though a search for JSON does return the tool allowing you to drop it on your canvas without realizing that it comes from the Laboratory palette)

Perhaps you should open an idea to get some traction around having Alteryx flesh out the tool.  

Dan