About

This tool solves the common "Wrapper Hell" problem found in legacy API responses, XML-to-JSON conversions, and loosely typed data structures. In many systems, a single value is frequently wrapped in an array (e.g., ["value"]) due to schema rigidity. This converter extracts the scalar value from singular arrays while preserving multi-item arrays.

It operates on the logic that if a dataset A contains exactly one element x, the set itself implies the value of x. This is essential for normalizing data for frontend consumption, removing the need for repetitive [0] accessors in your code.

Formulas

The singularization function S processes an input variable x based on its cardinality |x|.

S(x) =

{

undefined if x is Array ∧ |x| = 0S(x₀) if x is Array ∧ |x| = 1 ∧ Deepx₀ if x is Array ∧ |x| = 1 ∧ ¬Deepx otherwise

Where x₀ represents the first element of the array.

Reference Data

Input Structure	Deep Mode: OFF	Deep Mode: ON	Logic Applied
["Apple"]	"Apple"	"Apple"	Unwrap Single
[1, 2, 3]	[1, 2, 3]	[1, 2, 3]	Preserve Multi
[["Data"]]	["Data"]	"Data"	Recursive Unwrap
[]	undefined	undefined	Empty Handling
{"id": [101]}	{"id": [101]}	{"id": 101}	Object Traversal
[[[42]]]	[[42]]	42	Deep Nesting

Frequently Asked Questions

By default, an empty array implies no value exists, so it converts to undefined (or null, depending on your selected setting). This mimics the behavior of accessing array[0] on an empty list.

No. If an array contains 2 or more items (e.g., [1, 2]), it is structurally ambiguous which one is the scalar "truth", so the array is preserved exactly as is to prevent data loss.

Deep Mode traverses the entire JSON tree. It looks inside Objects and nested Arrays. If it finds a property like "tags": ["urgent"], it will convert it to "tags": "urgent". Without Deep Mode, it only affects the top-level array.

Not strictly. Converting ["a"] to "a" is lossy because you lose the information that it was originally an array. However, you can use a "toArray" utility to re-wrap scalars into arrays if needed.