Serialization to JSON does not transfer attributes (like names)

[frankcorneliusmartin]

The jsonlite::toJSON(...) removes the names attribute from vectors. See why that is here: jeroen/jsonlite#76 We use this in quite a few algorithms. A temporary work around would be to add keep_vec_names=TRUE to the .toJSON function. Unfortunately they are going to drop this argument:

Input to asJSON(keep_vec_names=TRUE) is a named vector. In a future version of jsonlite, this option will not be supported, and named vectors will be translated into arrays instead of objects. If you want JSON object output, please use a named list instead. See ?toJSON.

A better solution would be to not use named vectors but named lists:

# named vector
vec <- c("a"=1, "b"=2)
jsonlite::toJSON(vec)
# output: [1,2] 

# named list
lis <- list("a"=1, "b"=2)
jsonlite::toJSON(lis)
# output: {"a":[1],"b":[2]} 

Best solution is to covert your vectors before transport (as.list):

vec <- c("a"=1, "b"=2)
jsonlite::toJSON(as.list(vec))
# output: [1,2]