Convert Javascript object to array

In ES5 (so will need a shim if supporting IE 8):

function transformToTextNodeTree(obj) {
  return Object.keys(obj).map(function(key) {
    var result = { text: key };
    if (Array.isArray(obj[key]) {
        result.children = obj[key].map(transformToTextNodeTree);
    } else if (typeof obj[key] === "object" && !(obj[key] == null)) {
      result.children = transformToTextNodeTree(obj[key]);
    } else {
      result.children = [createTextNode(obj[key])];
    }
    return result;
  })
}

function createTextNode(val) {
  return { text: val };
}

So what is it doing?

First, we create an array of all of the ownProperties of the object being passed in using Object.keys. We then map over the resulting array of key values and transform them into objects in the form {text, [...children]}.

The actual guts of our mapping function is a recursive function (it calls itself when it encounters an array or an object) that maps the key to the text field of the resulting object, and maps any children to the children field (and, as noted before, it does this recursively).

I may be wrong but I believe json is built into javascript. You should be able to say:

var object = eval("<jsoncode>");

where < jsoncode> is the string version of your json

It is possible that I am reading your problem wrong so please give feedback

After you parse JSON, you can try this:

var movieArr = [];
$.each(data, function(index, value) {
    var movie = {
        text: index,
        children: [
            { text: "Director", children: [ { text: value.Director } ] },
            { text: "Title", children: [ { text: value.Title } ] }
        ]
    };   
    arr.push(movie)
});

Try this:

// json - source JSON;
var result = [];
for (var url in json) {
    var el = json[url];
    var kids = [];
    for (var prop in el) {
        var v = el[prop];
        if (!v.length) v = [v];
        var subkids = [];
        for (var i in v) subkids.push({text: v[i]});
        kids.push({text: prop, children: subkids});
    }
    result.push({text: url, children: kids});
}

OK, and here's how I've managed to do it - inspired by your answers :-)

function convertJson(node)
{
    var result = [];
    $.each(node, function(key,value)
        {   
            var ch;

            if (($.type(value)!=="string")&&(value!=null)) ch = convertJson(value);
            else ch = [ { text: value }];

            var item =
            {
                text: key,
                children: ch

            };
            result.push(item);
        }
    )

    return result;
}

And yep, it works!