Would it make sense to store an array of JSON objects in a metafield with type string?

Retired Boards Appdev Graphql Basics And Troubleshooting
1

To cut back on query costs in graphql, I was thinking about storing data in a single metafield. All the data is related, and I often need to get it all at once. According to the documents on metafield types, the JSON string type is depreciated so I guess I would have to store the data as a long string with type single_line_text_field. So I would have to make the JSON object, stringify it, then add it to the metafield. However, JSON Objects and the metafields require double quotes so I would have to escape all the quotes when turning the object into a string (Unsure of this - JSON.stringify() and/or graphql may take care of that for me?).

var data_obj = {"key1": "value1", "key2": "value2"};

{ 
  "metafield": {
    "value": "{\"key1\": \"value1\", \"key2\": \"value2\"}"
  }
}

I could then use JSON.parse() on the value to turn it back into an object when I need to read/edit a certain key.

It will get a little more complicated when I want an array of objects as I will have to figure out how to go from a string to an array without messing up the objects (probably using some regular expressions).

Will this work or is it a bad idea? The docs say that the character limit for a string is 5 million, so I don’t need to worry about that. But I’m worried that having to go back and forth between a string and an array of objects will cause some errors. It would be nice to just use the JSON string metafield type, but I’m assuming I shouldn’t use something that is depreciated.

2

Hey Andy,

I’m going to double check on this for you to make sure I’m correct here (if I’m wrong, I’ll update this), but **json** is a valid type. The note you mentioned about the deprecated **json_string** is referring to a previous type that had existed. If you look at the column “API Name”, there previously was a type there with that json_string namespace.

You’re correct that the Javascript methods JSON.parse() and JSON.stringify() will convert a JSON object from/to a string and add those quotes for you. Check out the Mozilla docs for more info: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/JSON/stringify

Good luck!

Ben

2 Likes
3

This helps a lot, thank you!