JSONtext Path with dot in name

[Thoric]

I'm using JSONtext to retrieve data from a JSON file (JSON from another source).

The JSON items have dots in their name, for example:

{
  "Header": {
    "ecat.cmd": [
      "04",
      16,
      4
      ],

...

When using $. path notation, the dots represents breaks between names, but above you can see an entity with a dot in the name itself, so this doesn't work: 

Google suggests that you can escape the dot in the JSON path: $.Header.ecat\.cmd

Also, it suggests you can encapsulate: %.Header.\"ecat.cmd\"

Neither works. Is there an expected nomenclature for this in JSONtext?

[drjdpowell · Accepted solution]

Try this:

$.Header."ecat.cmd"

[drjdpowell]

This is how it is described in the extended help (though perhaps this is not clear enough):

Object items can also be specified as their proper JSON string.   This allows the use of characters in names that would otherwise not parse correctly.  For example:

$."My Name that contains \"quotes\", []brackets, and dots." 

Note that this must be proper JSON (thus the escaped quotes in the example).

Note that JSONpath doesn't have an actual specification, so I have not held to anyone else's ideas too closely.  Rather than make up a whole set of escaping rules specific to JSONpath, I instead defined the path as using JSON Strings, with unquoted LabVIEW strings as an option, just for convenience.   The real path is $."Header"."ecat.cmd".

[Thoric]

Thanks. Now that you've explained it I can see what the help means, but I think I would never have realised otherwise. It could use some rework, maybe breaking the example into three and showing that quotes around the names are equally valid (and arguably better).