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Flatten

The Flatten Function pulls fields out of a nested structure, moving nested key-value pairs (fields) up to a higher level in the object. You can specify:

  • Individual fields to flatten.
  • The depth at which to flatten fields.
  • The delimiter to use when concatenating keys.
  • An optional prefix to add to transformed field names.

The Flatten Function creates fully qualified names for promoted fields. If you simply need to promote fields without transforming their names, use the eval Function.

Usage
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Filter: Filter expression (JavaScript) that selects data to feed through the Function. Defaults to true, meaning it evaluates all events.

Description: Simple description of this Function. Defaults to empty.

Final: Toggle on to stop feeding data to the downstream Functions. Default is toggled off.

Fields: List of top-level fields to include for flattening. Defaults to an empty array, which means all fields. Limit to specific fields by typing in their names, separated by hard returns. Supports wildcards (*). Supports double-underscore (__) internal fields only if individually enumerated – not via wildcards.

Prefix: Prefix string for flattened field names. Defaults to empty.

Depth: Number representing the nested levels to consider for flattening. Minimum 1. Defaults to 5.

Delimiter: Delimiter to use for flattening. Defaults to _ (underscore).

Example
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Add the following test sample in Preview > Paste a Sample:

input
{
	"accounting": [{
		"firstName": "John",
		"lastName": "Doe",
		"age": 23
	}, {
		"firstName": "Mary",
		"lastName": "Smith",
		"age": 32
	}],
	"sales": [{
		"firstName": "Sally",
		"lastName": "Green",
		"age": 27
	}, {
		"firstName": "Jim",
		"lastName": "Galley",
		"age": 41
	}]
}

Under Select Event Breaker, choose ndjson (newline-delimited JSON), and select Save as a Sample File.

Here’s sample output with all settings at default:

output
{
  "accounting_0_firstName": "John",
  "accounting_0_lastName": "Doe",
  "accounting_0_age": 23,
  "accounting_1_firstName": "Mary",
  "accounting_1_lastName": "Smith",
  "accounting_1_age": 32,
  "sales_0_firstName": "Sally",
  "sales_0_lastName": "Green",
  "sales_0_age": 27,
  "sales_1_firstName": "Jim",
  "sales_1_lastName": "Galley",
  "sales_1_age": 41,
}

Using the Flatten Function’s default settings, we successfully create top-level fields from the nested JSON structure, as expected.

See Also
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