mapbox / mapbox/mapbox-gl-js

Feature request: expression for string.split(<separator>)

Open
#8,526 4 comments 8 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

cross-platform :tv: feature :green_apple:
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
12.4k
Forks
2.4k
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

## Motivation

*Underlying problem: The MVT format does not support array properties*

I want to send 48 numbers (between 0 and 1) along with every feature. These values represent congestion in electrical grid lines over 48 hours. I want to have a time slider to pick the hour, and style every feature according to their individual congestion at that hour.

*A workaround for this that I've used in OpenLayers is to ***use a string property, which contains all the values separated by semicolon. They are then split up in the style function***, and the "current congestion" (according to the slider) is used to style each line individually.*

It seems like this is not easily doable in Mapbox GL, which is why I'm making this feature request.

## Design Alternatives

It might be the case that there is some good alternative to this approach that I'm not seeing (that does not severely affect performance or scalability).

## Design

Proposition: implement the following expression:
```js
["split", separator_string, string]: array
```

Example:
```js
["split", ";", "1;0.5;0.33;0.101;0.2"]
-> ["1", "0.5", "0.33", "0.101", "0.2"]
```

The behavior should essentially be the same as the following (javascript):
```js
// ";" is the separator_string:
"1;0.5;0.33;0.101;0.2".split(";")
// ["1", "0.5", "0.33", "0.101", "0.2"]
```

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the expression evaluator and the existing expression test coverage for array-producing expressions. Implement the proposed split(separator_string, string) behavior, then verify that the example returns the expected string array and that edge cases match JavaScript split semantics.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, typescript
Domain
frontend, web-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.