How to save my javascript array to a file?

Question

My phonegap/iOS application has a file named data.js which contains an array. The application works with this array and some changes are stored into it.

Now when the user quits my application I want it to save the changes to the data.js file. Is there any way to do this?

UPDATE This is my array (the only thing in data.js):

var data = [
    [0, "A", "B", "0", "0"],
    [1, "C", "D", "0", "0"],
    [2, "E", "F", "0", "0"],
    ...
];

SOLVED! I used JSON to stringify my array and save it to the localStorage. It only has to work with Mobile Safari, so this is a good solution. Thanks for giving me the hints that made me solve my problem.

Maiku Mori · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-16 17:23:11Z

2

If you are using phonegap than for sure you can work with file system. Solution is to encode your array into JSON using serializeArray() method in JQuery.

Once you encode your array you will get JSON string which you have to store in a file using PhoneGap's Filewriter() function. For more detail on that visit this link.

I hope it helped you :-).

edited Sep 16, 2013 at 17:23

Maiku Mori

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answered Jan 3, 2012 at 19:32

Mehul Hingu

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4 Comments

G McLuhan Over a year ago

Stunning! I will try that out tomorrow and post if I managed to get it working.

Simon MacDonald Over a year ago

This is the way to go but one word of caution. The data.js file is included as part of your application so it won't be modifiable. On first startup of your app you should copy data.js to the apps filesystem and read/write that file.

Mehul Hingu Over a year ago

Well, you don't need to modify the data.js , you can store your array in.json file just before app is closed.And when app is started you can ajax that .json file and get the array and use it in your app.

G McLuhan Over a year ago

This all sounds exactly like what I want to do. My problem now is that I can't imagine which code I would be using to do it. How would you code it? I added my array in my first entry.

Robot Woods · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-03 19:22:51Z

0

Phonegap (at http://phonegap.com/tools/) is suggesting Lawnchair: http://westcoastlogic.com/lawnchair/

so you'd read that file into data.js instead of storing the data literally there

answered Jan 3, 2012 at 19:22

Robot Woods

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Comments

Louis B. · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-04 08:48:48Z

0

You could also save your array (or better yet its members) using localStorage, a key/value storage that stores your data locally, even when the user quits your app. Check out the guide in the Safari Developer Library.

answered Jan 4, 2012 at 8:48

Louis B.

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Comments

ghostCoder · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-05 06:57:53Z

0

use Lawnchair to save the array as a JSON object. The JSON object will be there in the memory till you clear the data for the application.
If you want to save it permanently to a file on the local filesystem then i guess you can write a phonegap plugin to sent the data across to the native code of plugin which will create/open a file and save it.

answered Jan 5, 2012 at 6:57

ghostCoder

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Comments

Yojimbo · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-11 19:29:20Z

0

JavaScript cannot tamper with the file system directly. You can do one of two things:

Save the changes onto a cookie and read it the next time
~~Send the changes (via AJAX) to a PHP file which would generate a downloadable file on the server, and serve it to the client.~~

There are probably more solutions, but these are the most reasonable two I can think of.

edited Nov 11, 2016 at 19:29

Yojimbo

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answered Jan 3, 2012 at 19:20

Madara's Ghost

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2 Comments

G McLuhan Over a year ago

Maybe I should have mentionend that I don't want the app to communicate with a server.

Madara's Ghost Over a year ago

Yes, you probably should have :)

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