#30daysofelm Day 15: Struggling with JSON :|

This is day 15 of my 30 day Elm challenge

Today I wanted to do some stuff with the JSON from day 9: Astronomy data from Python in Elm

There's no finished code today, and I feel like I'm fumbling around blindly to be honest.

I've learned a couple of new concepts though, so this isn't a failure at all. :)

Here is today's unfinished non-working code if you're interested: https://github.com/kristianpedersen/30-days-of-elm/tree/main/015-json

In one terminal, run pyhton3 app.py, and in another one, navigate to templates and run elm-live src/Main.elm (npm install -g elm-live first)

0. Simple example

Here's a very basic example.

API:

{ hiMessage: "hi" }

hi : Decoder String
hi =
  field "hiMessage" string

1. Describing the data I want

The JSON I want looks like this:

{"Jupiter":{"lightMinutes":49.561547588282494,"xyz":[-15.160997437594864,35.36776769042324,86.01557267383876]},"Mars":{"lightMinutes":7.056627943382205,"xyz":[-10.802377084003577,-7.957103044154623,0.0]},"Mercury":{"lightMinutes":11.873735464944051,"xyz":[-15.39294493449285,5.8815766045335,-15.430849180096907]},"Neptune":{"lightMinutes":251.12126006612468,"xyz":[-200.051138076174,-188.4930229293946,-390.39907178706875]},"Pluto":{"lightMinutes":292.0545551594518,"xyz":[-487.1954814422351,-265.82244414880427,-17.713974776837258]},"Saturn":{"lightMinutes":90.34545293522373,"xyz":[10.90385529195623,67.16589122515714,157.720111144322]},"Sol":{"lightMinutes":8.178862544580388,"xyz":[-3.3688535760154714,10.267169613495522,-11.182551853223776]},"Uranus":{"lightMinutes":159.9896536380283,"xyz":[-300.96106486799965,44.176269302014866,0.0]},"Venus":{"lightMinutes":12.801164839345946,"xyz":[-12.926388560134972,-6.636737189572844,19.52518546405315]}}

I could probably re-write the JSON from Python, but I guess it's nice to be able to describe all kinds of JSON.

type alias Planets =
    List Planet


type alias Planet =
    { planetName : PlanetInfo }


type alias PlanetInfo =
    { lightMinutes : Float
    , xyz : List Float
    }

Something like this would be the starting point, but this is as far as I've come today.

I'm not sure if these type aliases will work, I can't get any text to display, and I can't figure out how to debug it, so today's upload is just the repo.

I'll celebrate the new year instead, get a good night's sleep, and hopefully connect the pieces next year. ;)

Comments

[Wolfgang Schuster]

Sorry JSON is causing you such troubles. Maybe a few pointers to help guide you towards an answer when you come back to this day, assuming you do.

Some suggestions on changes to your types. Looking at your data

{
  "Jupiter": {
    "lightMinutes": 49.561547588282494,
    "xyz": [
      -15.160997437594864,
      35.36776769042324,
      86.01557267383876
    ]
  },
 ...
}

To me, this looks more like Dict String PlanetInfo since you're only going to have 1 instance for each planet. List Planet would allow multiples of any planet.

Next, your PlanetInfo looks close, but I think you'd be better suited to have the "xyz" key converted to something like

type alias Point =
    { x : Float
    , y : Float
    , z : Float
    }

This brings your types to something like

type alias Planets =
    Dict String PlanetInfo

type alias PlanetInfo =
    { lightMinutes : Float
    , position : Point
    }

type alias Point =
    { x : Float
    , y : Float
    , z : Float
    }

I hope this gives you a much better starting point. Happy to help more if you're interested.

---

And happy new year!

[Kristian Pedersen]

Thank you so much, and happy new year!

I had overlooked dicts, and there are a couple of other things I'm not clear on, so elm/core is on today's reading list. :D

Your input seems like a very good starting point for today. Yesterday was still a step forward, so I'm happy with my progress. Again, thanks for your help!