Recursively filter array of objects
Using .filter() and making a recursive call as I described in the comment above is basically what you need. You just need to update each .children property with the result of the recursive call before returning.
The return value is just the .length of the resulting .children collection, so if there's at least one, the object is kept.
var res = input.filter(function f(o) { if (o.value.includes("Hit")) return true if (o.children) { return (o.children = o.children.filter(f)).length }})Note that .includes() on a String is ES7, so may need to be patched for legacy browsers. You can use the traditional .indexOf("Hit") != -1 in its place.
To not mutate the original, create a map function that copies an object and use that before the filter.
function copy(o) { return Object.assign({}, o)}var res = input.map(copy).filter(function f(o) { if (o.value.includes("Hit")) return true if (o.children) { return (o.children = o.children.map(copy).filter(f)).length }})To really squeeze the code down, you could do this:
var res = input.filter(function f(o) { return o.value.includes("Hit") || o.children && (o.children = o.children.filter(f)).length})Though it gets a little hard to read.
Here's a function that'll do what you're looking for. Essentially it will test every item in arr for a match, then recursively call filter on its children. Also Object.assign is used so that the underlying object isn't changed.
function filter(arr, term) { var matches = []; if (!Array.isArray(arr)) return matches; arr.forEach(function(i) { if (i.value.includes(term)) { matches.push(i); } else { let childResults = filter(i.children, term); if (childResults.length) matches.push(Object.assign({}, i, { children: childResults })); } }) return matches;}
I think it will be a recursive solution. Here is one that I tried.
function find(obj, key) { if (obj.value && obj.value.indexOf(key) > -1){ return true; } if (obj.children && obj.children.length > 0){ return obj.children.reduce(function(obj1, obj2){ return find(obj1, key) || find(obj2, key); }, {}); } return false;}var output = input.filter(function(obj){ return find(obj, 'Hit'); });console.log('Result', output);