How to convert data in another form using Regex?

Question

I have a huge list with all the countries and cities in this format below.

city_states['Finland'] = '|Helsinki||Aland|Etela-Suomen Laani|Ita-Suomen Laani|Lansi-Suomen Laani|Lappi|Oulun Laani';

My question is how can I convert it into so that I can run it in an autocomplete script? I use notepad++ so it lets me to do regex.

{ value: 'Finland, Helsinki', data: '' },
{ value: 'Finland, Aland', data: '' },
...
...
...

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

Iterate the city_states variable and then push objects into result array.

 var city_states = {}; city_states['Finland'] = '|Helsinki||Aland|Etela-Suomen Laani|Ita-Suomen Laani|Lansi-Suomen Laani|Lappi|Oulun Laani'; var result = []; for (var k in city_states) { var c = city_states[k].replace(/^\\|/, "").split(/[\\|]+/) for (var i in c) { result.push({ value: k + ", " + c[i], data: "" }); } } alert(JSON.stringify(result, null, 2));