Structure of Results Appear to Change Based on Query

Question

If I run this query: https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools?latest.school.city=Los Angeles&api_key=XXXXXXXXXXX, then the results look something like this:

However, if I run this query: https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools?latest.school.city=Los%20Angeles&latest.programs.cip_4_digit.code=1312&api_key=XXXXXXXXXX, then the results look something like this:

Is there a way to run the second query so that the results are structured the same way that the results from the first query are structured?

Answer 1

Currently, this is how the API is intended to function with respect to four digit CIP codes. In order to support a legacy requirement, any query using programs.cip_4_digit will return the data in the dotted form.

If you need to transform this data back into a JSON object, you could use a library like dot-object to do this.

Answer 2

Thank you for your response.

I am currently working on an alternative solution that inserts &fields=... into the url. This yields a more consistent data set in terms of the structure.

An example might be: https://api.data.gov/ed/collegescorecard/v1/schools?fields=latest.school.name,latest.school.city,latest.school.state,latest.school.school_url,latest.school.price_calculator_url,latest.student.size,latest.student.grad_students,latest.cost.tuition.in_state,latest.cost.tuition.out_of_state&latest.school.city=Los%20Angeles&latest.programs.cip_4_digit.code=5206&api_key=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX