JSON: advanced features - filtering a list & returning a value

Overview

You have an item that is returned in a JSON list but rather than being in a specific location in the list i.e. foo.[2].bar - it could be in any location in the list. Using a filter to identify the item, and then extracting that as a variable is how we handle this scenario.

Summary

The Assertion checks syntax uses a cut-down version of the Jinja templating library to parse the data, which allows for some filters (marked by |) and tests as well as the direct dot-notation syntax.

For example, consider the following JSON:

{
  "headers": [
    {
      "key": "Content-Type",
      "value: "application/json"
    },
    {
      "key": "Interaction-Id",
      "value: "123456789123456789"
    },
    {
      "key": "X-APImetrics-Id",
      "value": "asdfasdfasdfasdf"
    }
  ]
}

In this JSON, the headers are in a list. If that list is always in the same order, you can use the regular notation to find the value associated with the key Interaction-Id:

headers[1].value

However, if this list is not in a guaranteed order, you need to use filters and tests to get the value you require.

In the above example, to get the Interaction-Id, you'd use the following assertion:

headers|selectattr("key", "eq", "Interaction-Id")|map(attribute="value")|first

To explain:

the selectattr filters the list of header objects where the object has an attribute key, that is equal to Interaction-Id - this will reduce the headers list to the a list containing the one matching item
the map with attribute extracts the value for the filtered list - this will leave a list with one item that is the value we want
the first returns the first item in the list

Filters available

More information on the filters is available in the Jinja templating library documentation. A selection of useful filters include:

Filter	Description	Parameters
first	Returns the first item in a list
join	Joins a list into a string, e.g. list\|join(", ") creates a comma separated list	String to join values with attribute - attribute to use from list objects
last	Returns the last item in a list
length	Returns the length of a list
map	Applies a filter on a sequence of objects or looks up an attribute. This is useful when dealing with lists of objects but you are really only interested in a certain value of it.	attribute - attribute to look up from list objects
reject	Filters a sequence of objects by applying a test to each object, and rejecting the objects with the test succeeding.	Test for filter (see below)
rejectattr	Filters a sequence of objects by applying a test to the specified attribute of each object, and rejecting the objects with the test succeeding.	Attribute to look up from list objects Test for filter (see below)
replace	Return a copy of the value with all occurrences of a substring replaced with a new one.
select	Filters a sequence of objects by applying a test to each object, and only selecting the objects with the test succeeding.	Test for filter (see below)
selectattr	Filters a sequence of objects by applying a test to the specified attribute of each object, and only selecting the objects with the test succeeding.	Attribute to look up from list objects Test for filter (see below)
sort	Sort an iterable	reverse - reverse sort case_sensitive - whether sorting is case sensitive attribute - attribute to sort by
unique	Returns a list of unique items from the the given iterable.	case_sensitive - whether sorting is case sensitive attribute - attribute to sort by

Tests available

Tests are used as part of the filters. More information on the tests is available in the Jinja templating library documentation. A selection of useful tests include:

Test	Description
eq, equalto, ==	Equal to
ge, >=	Greater or equal to
gt, >	Greater than
le, <=	Less than or equal to
lt, <	Less than
ne, !=	Not equal to
none	Returns true if the variable is null
undefined	Returns true if the variable does not exist

Use Case

In this example, we have a sample returned JSON list where we want to find the Interaction ID and extract that as a variable for use in another call.

The first step is to set up an assertion check to create a filter and check that the item exists.

We do this in the 'assertions' section of the API edit pane.

json.headers|selectattr("key", "eq", "Interaction-Id")|map(attribute="value")|first

We set the ASSERTION to test it exists using the filter string in the test, thus:

We then add the command to EXTRACT the value: First we set the search criteria to find the value Interaction id.

json.headers|selectattr("key", "eq", "Interaction-Id")|map(attribute="value")|first

And then set the EXTRACT conditions to set the variable you use.

Your assertions section of the edit pane should look something like this:

When the API call is run, the variable INTERACTION_ID is set to the value of the Interaction id in the returned JSON.

This can be used in another call in a workflow using %%INTERACTION_ID%% or INTERATION_ID