ast-delete-object^1.9.2

Delete all plain objects in AST if they contain a certain key/value pair

Install globally, via npm

npm i ast-delete-object

The default is exported, so instead of "deleteObj" below, you can name the consumed function however you want.

Consume via a require():

const deleteObj = require("ast-delete-object");

or as an ES Module:

import deleteObj from "ast-delete-object";

Install as a script, via CDN

Put this in your HTML:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/ast-delete-object/dist/ast-delete-object.umd.js">

Then, you’ll get a global variable astDeleteObject in your Global object and you consume it like this:

const deleteObj = astDeleteObject;

This deleteObj is your main function. See its API in the main section.

Trivia

This program has 112 assertions in its unit tests. That's more than all unit test assertions' median (52) and more than geometric mean (71).

§ Quick Take

import { strict as assert } from "assert";
import deleteObj from "ast-delete-object";

// if all keys in source object match target object's keys, the
// source object gets deleted:
assert.deepEqual(
  deleteObj(
    [
      "elem1",
      {
        findme1: "zzz",
        findme2: "yyy",
        somethingelse: "qqq",
      },
      "elem2",
    ],
    {
      findme1: "zzz",
      findme2: "yyy",
    }
  ),
  ["elem1", "elem2"]
);

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§ Examples

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§ Purpose

It deletes objects in AST if all given keys-value pairs are matched.

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§ API

deleteObj(input, objToDelete, [options])

In other words, it's a function which takes three input arguments, third-one being optional (marked by square brackets). It will not mutate the input AST.

§ API - Input

Input argument	Type	Obligatory?	Description
`input`	Whatever	yes	AST tree, or object or array or whatever. Can be deeply-nested.
`objToDelete`	Whatever	yes	Key/value pairs that should be used to match plain objects.
`options`	Boolean	no	OOO: Optional Options Object (see API below)

By the way, the input arguments are not mutated in any way.

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§ API - Options object

`options` object's key	Type	Obligatory?	Default	Description
`matchKeysStrictly`	Boolean	no	`false`	If you supplied an object to match, and all its keys were found in target object, that target object will be deleted. Now, there could have been extra keys there. If you set `matchKeysStrictly` to `true`, both keysets as well as key values have to match.
`hungryForWhitespace`	Boolean	no	`false`	When active, empty value (one which would get `trim`-med to empty string, `""`) will match any other empty value (which might be different matching strictly, yet `trim` to the same empty string, `""`).

Defaults in one place:

{
  matchKeysStrictly: false,
  hungryForWhitespace: false,
}

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§ API - Output

This library will return the clone of first input argument with relevant elements deleted.

§ `opts.matchKeysStrictly`

If you want the search to be strict, that is to require the key set to match exactly, use options object, matchKeysStrictly: true:

const deleteObj = require("ast-delete-object");
let res = deleteObj(
  [
    "elem1",
    {
      findme1: "zzz",
      findme2: "yyy",
      somethingelse: "qqq", // <--- this key will block deletion
    },
    "elem2",
  ],
  {
    findme1: "zzz",
    findme2: "yyy",
  },
  {
    matchKeysStrictly: true, // <--- strict matching
  }
);
console.log("res = " + JSON.stringify(res, null, 4));
// => nothing changes!
// [
//   'elem1',
//   {
//     findme1: 'zzz',
//     findme2: 'yyy',
//     somethingelse: 'qqq'
//   },
//   'elem2'
// ]

In example above, object was not deleted because strict matching ignored it because of unrecognised key somethingelse.

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§ `opts.hungryForWhitespace`

This is a library to deal with AST's, and they usually have lots of white space. Often there are many elements that contains only spaces, tabs or line breaks. Sometimes we want to pretend that those elements containing white space don't exist, so deletion is more aggressive regarding the white space.

For example, notice how we look for blank plain object, but it catches other objects that contain only empty space:

const deleteObj = require("ast-delete-object");
let res = deleteObj(
  [
    { a: "\n" },
    {
      key3: "val3",
      key4: "val4",
    },
    { b: "   " },
    { c: "" },
  ],
  {},
  { matchKeysStrictly: false, hungryForWhitespace: true }
);
console.log("res = " + JSON.stringify(res, null, 4));
// =>  [{
//      key3: 'val3',
//      key4: 'val4'
//    }]

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§ The story

Originally, this program was created to help us delete unused CSS (as objects) from parsed HTML (AST tree) in email-comb. Since then, we've rewritten email-comb to process the code without parsing, without AST. email-comb became faster by magnitude (milliseconds instead of seconds/minutes).

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