District.Boundary.Shape ???

[Brandon Gresham]

On http://openstates.org/api/districts/#district-boundary-lookup we see the following gist:

<script src="https://gist.github.com/1169257.js?file=boundary.js"></script>

Notice that 'shape' is embedded in a 4-layer object.  I thought it was just that particular example and how it's truncated.  But I queried a district in my state and found the same thing.

Is there a reason this field is this way, or can I safely just strip out the top few layers and treat it as a single object consisting of a list of pairs?  ie: List<BoundaryPoints>

Or, are there instances where this:

[[[[-111.944203, 40.832028], [-111.942407, 40.831548], ... ]]]

doesn't hold and can be this:

[ 

[ 

[ 

[-111.944203, 40.832028], [-111.942407, 40.831548], ... 

], 

[ ... ], ... 

], 

[ ... ], ... ] 

]

????

If this holds, can anyone provide me an example of such?

 

 

[Brandon Gresham]

Sorry, that gist-embed didn't work how I expected; here it is raw instead:

{

   "name":"35",

   "region":{

      "lon_delta":1.6516490000000061,

      "center_lon":-98.100715,

      "lat_delta":1.9897119999999973,

      "center_lat":28.479282

   },

   "chamber":"lower",

   "shape":[

      [

       [

         [ -97.359811,  28.400859 ],

         [ -97.368913,  28.393902 ],

         [ -97.373934,  28.390072 ],

         [ -97.375113,  28.389172 ],  

         ... // truncated

       ], ... 

     ]

   ],

   "abbr":"tx",

   "boundary_id":"sldl-tx-state-house-district-35",

   "num_seats":1

}

[James Turk]

The reason for this deeply nested structure is that some shapes are
multipolygons, if you're looking for an example look to a state like
Alaska that has lots of islands. I wouldn't recommend flattening it
or truncating it in any way.

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[Brandon Gresham]

Dang, that's what I was worried about. :(
OK, thanks for the confirmation. :)

[Brandon Gresham]

How do you think it would be best to represent this?   Like so?

public String[][][][] shape;