flat json to recursive tree json

Create a nested array recursively in Javascript

Let’s say you have an array like this:

[
    {id: 1, title: 'hello', parent: 0},
    {id: 2, title: 'hello', parent: 0},
    {id: 3, title: 'hello', parent: 1},
    {id: 4, title: 'hello', parent: 3},
    {id: 5, title: 'hello', parent: 4},
    {id: 6, title: 'hello', parent: 4},
    {id: 7, title: 'hello', parent: 3},
    {id: 8, title: 'hello', parent: 2}
]

And you want to have the objects nested like this:

[
    {id: 1, title: 'hello', parent: 0, children: [
        {id: 3, title: 'hello', parent: 1, children: [
            {id: 4, title: 'hello', parent: 3, children: [
                {id: 5, title: 'hello', parent: 4},
                {id: 6, title: 'hello', parent: 4}
            ]},
            {id: 7, title: 'hello', parent: 3}
        ]}
    ]},
    {id: 2, title: 'hello', parent: 0, children: [
        {id: 8, title: 'hello', parent: 2}
    ]}
]

Here’s a recursive function that makes it happen.

function getNestedChildren(arr, parent) {
    var out = []
    for(var i in arr) {
        if(arr[i].parent == parent) {
            var children = getNestedChildren(arr, arr[i].id)

            if(children.length) {
                arr[i].children = children
            }
            out.push(arr[i])
        }
    }
    return out
}