gistfile1.js

/**
 *  converts like objects into a format which will serialize to a more compact JSON string
 */
function listToTable (list, cols){
  var table = {};
  for (var i = 0, item; item= list[i], i < list.length; i++){
    for (var key in item){
      if (item.hasOwnProperty(key)){
        if (!table[key]) table[key] = [];
        table[key][i] = item[key]
      }
    }
  }
  return {columns: table, length: i}
}
/**
 * restores objects which were compacted by listToTable
 */
function tableToList (table){
  var list = [];
  var cols = [];
  for (var key in table.columns){
    if (table.columns.hasOwnProperty(key))
      cols.push(key)
  }
  for (var i = 0; i < table.length; i++){
    list[i] = {};
    for (var c = 0, col; col = cols[c], c < cols.length; c++){
      list[i][col] = table.columns[col][i];
    }    
  }
  return list
}