Dynamic Javascript Tree Structure

Question

I would like to build the hierarchy dynamically with each node created as a layer/level in the hierarchy having its own array of nodes. THIS SHOULD FORM A TREE STRUCTURE.There should be a root node, and an undefined number of nodes and levels to make up the hierarchy size. Nothing should be fixed besides the root node. I do not need to read or search the hierarchy, I need to construct it. The array should start {"name" : "A", "children" : []} and every new node as levels would be created {"name" : "A", "children" : [HERE-{"name" : "A", "children" : []}]}. In the child array, going deeper and deeper. Basically the array should have no values before the call, except maybe the root node. After the function call, the array should comprise of the required nodes of a number that may vary with every call depending on the results of a database query. Every child array will contain one or more node values. There should be a minimum of 2 node levels, including the root. It should initially be a Blank canvas, that is no predefined array values.

Answer 1

So your nodes have a name: property and a children: array property.

Databases typically store trees in tables as

node-id, parent-id, value1, ..., valueN

(you can get certain advantages if you store depth-first visit order and depth-first return order; ask in comments if you need the details).

If you make a single query and get this data into JSON, you will have something like (for your illustration),

[{id: "0", parent: "-1", name: "A2"}, {id: "1", parent: "0", name: "A3"}, 
 {id: "2", parent: "1", name: "A31"}, {id: "3", parent: "2", name: "A311"}, 
 {id: "4", parent: "2", name: "A312"}]

You can convert this into {name: children:} format with the following code:

  // data is an array in the above format
function toTree(data) {
   var childrenById = {}; // of the form id: [child-ids]
   var nodes = {};        // of the form id: {name: children: }
   var i, row;
   // first pass: build child arrays and initial node array
   for (i=0; i<data.length; i++) {
       row = data[i];
       nodes[row.id] = {name: row.name, children: []};
       if (row.parent == -1) { // assume -1 is used to mark the root's "parent"
          root = row.id; 
       } else if (childrenById[row.parent] === undefined) {
          childrenById[row.parent] = [row.id];
       } else {
          childrenById[row.parent].push(row.id);
       }
   }
   // second pass: build tree, using the awesome power of recursion!
   function expand(id) {
       if (childrenById[id] !== undefined) {
           for (var i=0; i < childrenById[id].length; i ++) {
               var childId = childrenById[id][i];
               nodes[id].children.push(expand(childId));
           }
       }
       return nodes[id];
   }
   return expand(root);
}

See http://jsfiddle.net/z6GPB/ for a working example.