I started this project as a means to help me analyze the data for the game FFBE. I wanted a way to take the JSON files exported from the FFBESync tool, and analyze them. My background was in SQL server reporting so I set myself the task of figuring out how to process the JSON into MS SQL so I could write SQL queries against that data. The tool has 3 basic functions at this point in time (12/8/2020)
- When initiated the application goes to Git hub repository for the static data that aEnigma provides. By connecting to the github API it retrieves a list of all the files in the repository and their hash. It then compares that hash to a copy stored locally. If the file is new it downloads a fresh copy and then iterates through each file and takes the JSON and "flattens" it. Since I was most familiar with SQL the first step I needed, was to turn the nested JSON data into something I could work with.
- Creates a web-page for users to pass their data to the application.
- Takes the JSON files and flattens them, and merges them with the static data. Then format those files and provide them to the end user. Also upload them to a MSSQL Database to allow for reporting.
This tool uses EJS as a renderer for the web pages, Express as the web server and a few others for data manipulation.