How to read correctly this JSON file with Xidel?

Question

Excuse my English, I am not a native speaker

I have a json file "VideoJson.json" which contains the following

VideoJSONLoaded({"video_type": "0","image_id": "0","profile": false,"published_urls": [{"embed_url": "https://alura.hls/vod/p/manifest/55.mpd","protocol": "https","cdn_name": "Cloud","state": 10,"live_url": "https://alura.hls/vod/p/manifest/55.mpd"}],"access_rules": "{}","timed_cues": [],"embedded_cc": 1,"adst_temp_ver": "2"})

I try to read the json with Xidel with the following command

xidel-0.9.8.x32 "VideoJson.json" -e "$json"

And I get an error message

Error: jerr:JNDY0021: error at VideoJSONLoaded (tkIdentifier) in VideoJSONLoaded...

I think it's because the json is inside VideoJSONLoaded(JSON)

What command should I use to be able to read the json correctly and be able to extract data?

Answer 1

Whatever tool provided you this file did a bad job, because it's not JSON at all.

When you open a '*.json' file, xidel assumes JSON (--input-format=json). If it's not, then you have to override it with --input-format=text (--input-format=html for v0.9.8):

xidel -s --input-format=text "VideoJson.json" -e "$raw"
VideoJSONLoaded({"video_type": "0",[...],"adst_temp_ver": "2"})

To extract the JSON you could use substring-before() and substring-after():

xidel -s --input-format=text "VideoJson.json" -e "substring-before(substring-after($raw,'VideoJSONLoaded('),')')"
{"video_type": "0",[...],"adst_temp_ver": "2"}

Or extract():

xidel -s --input-format=text "VideoJson.json" -e "extract($raw,'\{.+\}')"
{"video_type": "0",[...],"adst_temp_ver": "2"}

And finally parse-json() (json() for v0.9.8) to parse the JSON:

xidel -s --input-format=text "VideoJson.json" -e "parse-json(extract($raw,'\{.+\}'))"
{
  "video_type": "0",
  "image_id": "0",
  "profile": false,
  "published_urls": [
    {
      "embed_url": "https://alura.hls/vod/p/manifest/55.mpd",
      "protocol": "https",
      "cdn_name": "Cloud",
      "state": 10,
      "live_url": "https://alura.hls/vod/p/manifest/55.mpd"
    }
  ],
  "access_rules": "{}",
  "timed_cues": [],
  "embedded_cc": 1,
  "adst_temp_ver": "2"
}