Detect current input language - swift

I am building an app which allows users to check the local time in any place around the world. The information is being fetched using Google APIs and all works well, but for the best results I need to specify the language which I would like to use.
Obviously, in my case, it makes sense to set the desired language to the one which user used when typing a city name. On iPhone this is super easy to do, but I cannot figure out how I could get this language code on macOS. Could anyone help me please?
Update
Following an advice from Leo I am now at the stage when I am getting the current input with the help of carbon framework.
let source = TISCopyCurrentKeyboardInputSource().takeUnretainedValue()
let lang = TISGetInputSourceProperty(source, kTISPropertyInputSourceLanguages).assumingMemoryBound(to: NSArray.self).pointee
The problem is that TISGetInputSourceProperty() returns an UnsafeMutableRawPointer. And I cannot find a way to convert it to something readable. I assume it is an NSArray, but I have no luck trying to convert it. Can someone help please?


let source = TISCopyCurrentKeyboardInputSource().takeUnretainedValue()
let value = TISGetInputSourceProperty(source, kTISPropertyInputSourceLanguages)
if (value != nil) {
var name = Unmanaged<AnyObject>.fromOpaque(value!).takeUnretainedValue() as? String
}
I learn it form here https://github.com/noraesae/kawa/blob/master/kawa/InputSourceManager.swift


Carbon has TISCopyCurrentKeyboardInputSource() which gives you the current language.
TISInputSourceRef source = TISCopyCurrentKeyboardInputSource();
TISGetInputSourceProperty(source, kTISPropertyInputSourceLanguages));
There is also the kTISNotifySelectedKeyboardInputSourceChanged distributed notification to determine when language changes.
For Swift ease of use, consider making an Objective C wrapper which returns a string value of the above API.

Related

Retrieving Finder tags from within a Swift or Objective-C app

Using NSURL APIs, how can a I determine which tags are set on a directory? The only API I'm aware of does indeed return a number associated with tags, but I'm not sure how to extract the specific tags from the returned value.
For example this will return 4 for directory B. I need to determine that both Blue and Green tags are set.
let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: "/Users/Username/Desktop/Test/B")
let resourceValues = try! url.resourceValues(forKeys:
[URLResourceKey.labelNumberKey])
print(resourceValues.labelNumber!) // 4
I've seen some use an enum to map the results back to Swift, but this doesn't seem to handle multiple tags.
enum LabelColor: Int {
case none
case gray
case green
case purple
case blue
case yellow
case red
case orange
}
So it seems an OptionSet would be the best implementation here for Swift.
If someone can point me to the algorithm used to extract tags from the total number that would be great!

I'm not aware of any way to grab the numeric values to the tags other than through a shell.
However, you can, as #Martin-R suggested, get an array of the tags attached to the file. I think this is best because user's can create custom tags, which may be hard to identify numerically.
I would suggest getting the array by using ⤵︎
var itemTags: [String] = []
do {
let resources = try url.resourceValues(forKeys: [.tagNamesKey])
if let tags = resources.tagNames {
itemTags = tags // ["Green", "Red"]
}
} catch {}
Once you have the array then you can just use some kind of enum & switch, for loop, or if/else to match it to colours you designate yourself.
Secret Sauce ⤵︎
Now the problem is that if you're sandboxed and you try this you'll probably only get one tag I imagine. It'll be the front-most tag.
This is just another one of Apple's security measures. To get around this your sandbox needs to extend to this resource.
It's a bit much to get into security scopes in this post, but here are two things you could try.
Use NSOpenPanel() to get the url or parent directory url. This will automatically give you privileges to that resource for that session. You can bookmark it, resolve it, and start accessing it.
Stop using the sandbox
Unfortunately, I don't know of other solutions that would work. I chose the first and it's the least painful at the moment.

Permanenly saving a Int in SpriteKit

I'm trying to create a game and need to be able to save a number and retrieve it. I've found another tutorial on this but it is outdated and kept giving errors:
//To save highest score
var highestScore:Int = 20
NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().setObject(highestScore,
forKey:"HighestScore")
NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().synchronize()
//To get the saved score
var savedScore: Int =
NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().objectForKey("HighestScore") as Int
println(savedScore)
More Details: It's to save a highscore if that helps (which I don't think it does).
Any help is welcome, Thanks.

NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().setInteger(20, forKey: "HighestScore")
let valueOrZeroIfNotSet = NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults().integerForKey("HighestScore")

NSUserdefaults are a really useful tool, you can permenantly create mutable variables that can be read and written anywhere and anytime. Heres a brief explanation of how to use them.
let saves = NSUserdefaults.standardUserDefaults()
You need to declare a NSUserdefaults to begin, now this is where you will be storing data. Imagine it as a Bookshelf, right now its empty but you can fill it with all forms of information.
Now that we have our 'Bookshelf', we can start filling it with Books, these books can be everything such as Integers, and Strings.
If we want to store my name (Peter) in a 'book' on the shelf, we would first have to create the book and give it a name. The name of the book is called the "key". The key has to be a unique String. Because Im storing my name the key will be "myName". Now we know our key to write to, now lets fill the book with information (Which is my name).
saves.setString("Peter", forKey: "myName")
Now we've made a book in our bookshelf that stores our name.
We will probably want to read this information just in case we need it! We can access books from our bookshelf easily with:
saves.stringForKey("myName")
Now we did need the key (the books name) so we could find the right book of information.
Thats pretty much it for NSUserdefaults for you.

importing website to google sheets

I have tried searching everywhere online for a good answer but cannot seem to find anything that matches specifically what i am looking for.
When i use the IMPORTHTML function in google sheets, i end up with data that looks like:
${player.name} (${player.position}, ${team.abbrev}) ${opponent.abbrev} #${opponent_rank} ${minutes} ${pts} ${fgm}-${fga} ${ftm}-${fta} ${p3m}-${p3a} ${treb} ${ast} ${stl} ${blk} ${tov} ${pf} ${fp} $${salary} ${ratio}
the code that i am using looks like this:
=IMPORTHTML("", "table",2)
When I use the same as above (=IMPORTHTML("", "table",2)) only with "0" as my index, it pulls this:
Opp Stats
Player Team Rank Min Pts FGM/A FTM/A 3PM/A Reb Ast Stl Blk Tov Foul FP Cost Value
Basically, I am attempting to pull the table data from this website:
https://www.numberfire.com/nba/fantasy/fantasy-basketball-projections
(because of my rep i cannot post more than two links, however my IMPORTHTML function has the above link input in both functions)
into a google sheet. Please help. any feedback is much appreciated... thanks!

Best advice is to find another Web table you can import. If you do "view source" on the page, you will find that the table content is dynamically populated from a variable named NF_DATA.
You need to create a document script to extract the data you want:
function this_is_test() {
var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch("https://www.numberfire.com/nba/fantasy/fantasy-basketball-projections");
raw_content = response.getContentText();
re = new RegExp('"daily_projections":\\[[^\\]]+','i');
proj = raw_content.match(re);
Logger.log(proj);
}
It will extract all text in-between "daily_projections":[ and ], which is (as of today):
"daily_projections":[{"nba_player_id":"77","nba_game_id":"20015","date":"2016-01-19","nba_team_id":"21","opponent_id":"7","season":"2016","game_play_probability":"1.00","game_start":"1.00","minutes":36.3,"fgm":"8.8","fga":"17.1","p3m":"1.9","p3a":"4.8","ftm":"6.2","fta":"6.9","oreb":"0.8","dreb":"7.2","ast":"4.7","stl":"1.1","blk":"1.2","tov":"2.7","pf":"1.8","pts":"25.3","ts":"0.628","efg":"0.655","oreb_pct":"2.6","dreb_pct":"21.4","treb_pct":"12.4","ast_pct":"23.4","stl_pct":"1.5","blk_pct":"2.4","tov_pct":"12.1","usg":"27.8","ortg":"122.2","drtg":"101.8","nerd":"22.34","star_street_fp":43.08,"star_street_salary":0,"star_street_ratio":0,"draft_street_daily_fp":39.75,"draft_street_daily_salary":0,"draft_street_daily_ratio":0,"fanduel_fp":43.85,"fanduel_salary":9900,"fanduel_ratio":4.43,"draft_kings_fp":46.55,"draft_kings_salary":9900,"draft_kings_ratio":4.7,"fantasy_feud_fp":39.75,"fantasy_feud_salary":153600,"fantasy_feud_ratio":0.26,"fanthrowdown_fp":45.2,"fanthrowdown_salary":0,"fanthrowdown_ratio":0,"fantasy_aces_fp":44.25,"fantasy_aces_salary":7250,"fantasy_aces_ratio":6.1,"draftday_fp":45.25,"draftday_salary":18800,"draftday_ratio":2.41,"fantasy_score_fp":45.6,"fantasy_score_salary":9600,"fantasy_score_ratio":4.75,"draftster_fp":43.75,"draftster_salary":9400,"draftster_ratio":4.65,"yahoo_fp":44.8,"yahoo_salary":52,"yahoo_ratio":0.86,"treb":8},{"nba_player_id":"397","nba_game_id":"20015","date":"2016-01-19","nba_team_id":"21","opponent_id":"7","season":"2016","game_play_probability":"1.00","game_start":"1.00","minutes":35,"fgm":"8.6","fga":"18.0","p3m":"1.3","p3a":"4.1","ftm":"5.9","fta":"7.2","oreb":"1.3","dreb":"5.0","ast":"8.8","stl":"2.0","blk":"0.4","tov":"3.6","pf":"2.2","pts":"24.4","ts":"0.576","efg":"0.592","oreb_pct":"4.6","dreb_pct":"15.3","treb_pct":"10.2","ast_pct":"44.4","stl_pct":"3.0","blk_pct":"0.8","tov_pct":"14.6","usg":"31.3","ortg":"117.8","drtg":"101.2","nerd":"19.75","star_street_fp":44.48,"star_street_salary":0,"star_street_ratio":0,"draft_street_daily_fp":41.33,"draft_street_daily_salary":0,"draft_street_daily_ratio":0,"fanduel_fp":46.36,"fanduel_salary":10500,"fanduel_ratio":4.42,"draft_kings_fp":49.13,"draft_kings_salary":10700,"draft_kings_ratio":4.59,"fantasy_feud_fp":41.33,"fantasy_feud_salary":169800,"fantasy_feud_ratio":0.24,"fanthrowdown_fp":47.33,"fanthrowdown_salary":0,"fanthrowdown_ratio":0,"fantasy_aces_fp":46.68,"fantasy_aces_salary":7800,"fantasy_aces_ratio":5.98,"draftday_fp":47.1,"draftday_salary":20500,"draftday_ratio":2.3,"fantasy_score_fp":48.48,"fantasy_score_salary":9900,"fantasy_score_ratio":4.9,"draftster_fp":45.38,"draftster_salary":9500,"draftster_ratio":4.78,"yahoo_fp":47.01,"yahoo_salary":59,"yahoo_ratio":0.8,"treb":6.3},{"nba_player_id":"279","nba_game_id":"20016","date":"2016-01-19","nba_team_id":"11","opponent_id":"24","season":"2016","game_play_probability":"1.00","game_start":"1.00","minutes":36.7,"fgm":"7.6","fga":"18.1","p3m":"2.5","p3a":"6.9","ftm":"5.5","fta":"6.5","oreb":"1.1","dreb":"5.8","ast":"5.3","stl":"1.8","blk":"0.4","tov":"3.6","pf":"2.4","pts":"22.5","ts":"0.537","efg":"0.610","oreb_pct":"3.3","dreb_pct":"17.6","treb_pct":"10.5","ast_pct":"25.1","stl_pct":"2.5","blk_pct":"0.9","tov_pct":"15.3","usg":"29.1","ortg":"104.1","drtg":"99.2","nerd":"5.26","star_street_fp":38.55,"star_street_salary":0,"star_street_ratio":0,"draft_street_daily_fp":34.13,"draft_street_daily_salary":0,"draft_street_daily_ratio":0,"fanduel_fp":39.53,"fanduel_salary":8700,"fanduel_ratio":4.54,"draft_kings_fp":42.93,"draft_kings_salary":9200,"draft_kings_ratio":4.67,"fantasy_feud_fp":34.13,"fantasy_feud_salary":138800,"fantasy_feud_ratio":0.25,"fanthrowdown_fp":41.13,"fanthrowdown_salary":0,"fanthrowdown_ratio":0,"fantasy_aces_fp":39.88,"fantasy_aces_salary":6500,"fantasy_aces_ratio":6.14,"draftday_fp":41.3,"draftday_salary":16600,"draftday_ratio":2.49,"fantasy_score_fp":41.68,"fantasy_score_salary":8400,"fantasy_score_ratio":4.96,"draftster_fp":39.45,"draftster_salary":8000,"draftster_ratio":4.93,"yahoo_fp":40.78,"yahoo_salary":47,"yahoo_ratio":0.87,"treb":6.9},{"nba_player_id":"2137","nba_game_id":"20014","date":"2016-01-19","nba_team_id":"38","opponent_id":"17","season":"2016","game_play_probability":"1.00","game_start":"1.00","minutes":35,"fgm":"8.0","fga":"16.6","p3m":"0.4","p3a":"1.3","ftm":"4.5","fta":"6.0","oreb":"2.6","dreb":"7.8","ast":"2.2","stl":"1.0","blk":"2.2","tov":"1.9","pf":"2.6","pts":"20.8","ts":"0.541","efg":"0.521","oreb_pct":"8.6","dreb_pct":"24.8","treb_pct":"16.6","ast_pct":"11.5","stl_pct":"1.4","blk_pct":"4.9","tov_pct":"9.4","usg":"27.0","ortg":"107.9","drtg":"103.1","nerd":"5.60","star_street_fp":41.05,"star_street_salary":0,"star_street_ratio":0,"draft_street_daily_fp":36.55,"draft_street_daily_salary":0,"draft_street_daily_ratio":0,"fanduel_fp":41.08,"fanduel_salary":10300,"fanduel_ratio":3.99,"draft_kings_fp":44.25,"draft_kings_salary":10000,"draft_kings_ratio":4.43,"fantasy_feud_fp":36.55,"fantasy_feud_salary":149400,"fantasy_feud_ratio":0.24,"fanthrowdown_fp":41.8,"fanthrowdown_salary":0,"fanthrowdown_ratio":0,"fantasy_aces_fp":41.6,"fantasy_aces_salary":7400,"fantasy_aces_ratio":5.62,"draftday_fp":40.43,"draftday_salary":18200,"draftday_ratio":2.22,"fantasy_score_fp":42.55,"fantasy_score_salary":9700,"fantasy_score_ratio":4.39,"draftster_fp":41.53,"draftster_salary":9200,"draftster_ratio":4.51,"yahoo_fp":41.28,"yahoo_salary":54,"yahoo_ratio":0.76,"treb":10.4},{"nba_player_id":"362","nba_game_id":"20013","date":"2016-01-19","nba_team_id":"15","opponent_id":"16","season":"2016","game_play_probability":"1.00","game_start":"1.00","minutes":34.9,"fgm":"7.3","fga":"15.4","p3m":"1.4","p3a":"3.7","ftm":"4.8","fta":"6.0","oreb":"1.7","dreb":"6.1","ast":"2.3","stl":"0.7","blk":"1.0","tov":"1.7","pf":"2.0","pts":"20.6","ts":"0.571","efg":"0.594","oreb_pct":"6.2","dreb_pct":"19.9","treb_pct":"13.3","ast_pct":"12.1","stl_pct":"1.1","blk_pct":"2.2","tov_pct":"8.5","usg":"26.5","ortg":"115.3","drtg":"104.5","nerd":"11.63","star_street_fp":34.93,"star_street_salary":0,"star_street_ratio":0,"draft_street_daily_fp":30.85,"draft_street_daily_salary":0,"draft_street_daily_ratio":0,"fanduel_fp":35.11,"fanduel_salary":7800,"fanduel_ratio":4.5,"draft_kings_fp":37.05,"draft_kings_salary":7600,"draft_kings_ratio":4.88,"fantasy_feud_fp":30.85,"fantasy_feud_salary":120400,"fantasy_feud_ratio":0.26,"fanthrowdown_fp":36.2,"fanthrowdown_salary":0,"fanthrowdown_ratio":0,"fantasy_aces_fp":35.5,"fantasy_aces_salary":5900,"fantasy_aces_ratio":6.02,"draftday_fp":35.43,"draftday_salary":13950,"draftday_ratio":2.54,"fantasy_score_fp":36.35,"fantasy_score_salary":7000,"fantasy_score_ratio":5.19,"draftster_fp":35.35,"draftster_salary":7200,"draftster_ratio":4.91,"yahoo_fp":35.81,"yahoo_salary":40,"yahoo_ratio":0.9,"treb":7.8},{"nba_player_id":"2249","nba_game_id":"20014","date":"2016-01-19","nba_team_id":"17","opponent_id":"38","season":"2016","game_play_probability":"1.00","game_start":"1.00","minutes":35.7,"fgm":"7.2","fga":"16.6","p3m":"0.9","p3a":"3.2","ftm":"4.6","fta":"6.3","oreb":"1.3","dreb":"2.9","ast":"2.1","stl":"0.9","blk":"0.5","tov":"2.2","pf":"2.4","pts":"20.2","ts":"0.521","efg":"0.530","oreb_pct":"4.3","dreb_pct":"9.6","treb_pct":"6.9","ast_pct":"10.2","stl_pct":"1.3","blk_pct":"1.0","tov_pct":"10.3","usg":"26.7","ortg":"101.6","drtg":"111.5","nerd":"-7.07","star_street_fp":28.68,"star_street_salary":0,"star_street_ratio":0,"draft_street_daily_fp":23.65,"draft_street_daily_salary":0,"draft_street_daily_ratio":0,"fanduel_fp":28.99,"fanduel_salary":6700,"fanduel_ratio":4.33,"draft_kings_fp":30.75,"draft_kings_salary":6900,"draft_kings_ratio":4.46,"fantasy_feud_fp":23.65,"fantasy_feud_salary":113500,"fantasy_feud_ratio":0.21,"fanthrowdown_fp":29.65,"fanthrowdown_salary":0,"fanthrowdown_ratio":0,"fantasy_aces_fp":29.2,"fantasy_aces_salary":4900,"fantasy_aces_ratio":5.96,"draftday_fp":28.43,"draftday_salary":12000,"draftday_ratio":2.37,"fantasy_score_fp":30.3,"fantasy_score_salary":6000,"fantasy_score_ratio":5.05,"draftster_fp":29.23,"draftster_salary":5900,"draftster_ratio":4.95,"yahoo_fp":29.44,"yahoo_salary":29,"yahoo_ratio":1.02,"treb":4.2},{"nba_player_id":"370","nba_game_id":
Note that even this is not complete. You need to somehow map nba_player_id to the appropriate name. Anyway, a lot coding will be involved...

Autocomplete with Firebase

How does one use Firebase to do basic auto-completion/text preview?
For example, imagine a blog backed by Firebase where the blogger can tag posts with tags. As the blogger is tagging a new post, it would be helpful if they could see all currently-existing tags that matched the first few keystrokes they've entered. So if "blog," "black," "blazing saddles," and "bulldogs" were tags, if the user types "bl" they get the first three but not "bulldogs."
My initial thought was that we could set the tag with the priority of the tag, and use startAt, such that our query would look something like:
fb.child('tags').startAt('bl').limitToFirst(5).once('value', function(snap) {
console.log(snap.val())
});
But this would also return "bulldog" as one of the results (not the end of the world, but not the best either). Using startAt('bl').endAt('bl') returns no results. Is there another way to accomplish this?
(I know that one option is that this is something we could use a search server, like ElasticSearch, for -- see https://www.firebase.com/blog/2014-01-02-queries-part-two.html -- but I'd love to keep as much in Firebase as possible.)
Edit
As Kato suggested, here's a concrete example. We have 20,000 users, with their names stored as such:
/users/$userId/name
Oftentimes, users will be looking up another user by name. As a user is looking up their buddy, we'd like a drop-down to populate a list of users whose names start with the letters that the searcher has inputted. So if I typed in "Ja" I would expect to see "Jake Heller," "jake gyllenhaal," "Jack Donaghy," etc. in the drop-down.

I know this is an old topic, but it's still relevant. Based on Neil's answer above, you more easily search doing the following:
fb.child('tags').startAt(queryString).endAt(queryString + '\uf8ff').limit(5)
See Firebase Retrieving Data.
The \uf8ff character used in the query above is a very high code point
in the Unicode range. Because it is after most regular characters in
Unicode, the query matches all values that start with queryString.

As inspired by Kato's comments -- one way to approach this problem is to set the priority to the field you want to search on for your autocomplete and use startAt(), limit(), and client-side filtering to return only the results that you want. You'll want to make sure that the priority and the search term is lower-cased, since Firebase is case-sensitive.
This is a crude example to demonstrate this using the Users example I laid out in the question:
For a search for "ja", assuming all users have their priority set to the lowercased version of the user's name:
fb.child('users').
startAt('ja'). // The user-inputted search
limitToFirst(20).
once('value', function(snap) {
for(key in snap.val()){
if(snap.val()[key].indexOf('ja') === 0) {
console.log(snap.val()[key];
}
}
});
This should only return the names that actually begin with "ja" (even if Firebase actually returns names alphabetically after "ja").
I choose to use limitToFirst(20) to keep the response size small and because, realistically, you'll never need more than 20 for the autocomplete drop-down. There are probably better ways to do the filtering, but this should at least demonstrate the concept.
Hope this helps someone! And it's quite possible the Firebase guys have a better answer.
(Note that this is very limited -- if someone searches for the last name, it won't return what they're looking for. Hence the "best" answer is probably to use a search backend with something like Kato's Flashlight.)

It strikes me that there's a much simpler and more elegant way of achieving this than client side filtering or hacking Elastic.
By converting the search key into its' Unicode value and storing that as the priority, you can search by startAt() and endAt() by incrementing the value by one.
var start = "ABA";
var pad = "AAAAAAAAAA";
start += pad.substring(0, pad.length - start.length);
var blob = new Blob([start]);
var reader = new FileReader();
reader.onload = function(e) {
var typedArray = new Uint8Array(e.target.result);
var array = Array.prototype.slice.call(typedArray);
var priority = parseInt(array.join(""));
console.log("Priority of", start, "is:", priority);
}
reader.readAsArrayBuffer(blob);
You can then limit your search priority to the key "ABB" by incrementing the last charCode by one and doing the same conversion:
var limit = String.fromCharCode(start.charCodeAt(start.length -1) +1);
limit = start.substring(0, start.length -1) +limit;
"ABA..." to "ABB..." ends up with priorities of:
Start: 65666565656565650000
End: 65666665656565650000
Simples!

Based on Jake and Matt's answer, updated version for sdk 3.1. '.limit' no longer works:
firebaseDb.ref('users')
.orderByChild('name')
.startAt(query)
.endAt(`${query}\uf8ff`)
.limitToFirst(5)
.on('child_added', (child) => {
console.log(
{
id: child.key,
name: child.val().name
}
)
})

How do I Benchmark RESTful Service with Variable Parameters?

I'm currently working on benchmarking a RESTful service I've made, and part of that is making sure it runs in a reasonable amount of times for a large array of parameters. For example, let's say I have RESTful API of the form some_site.com/item?item_id=y. In that case to be sure my service is working as fast as I'd like it to work, I'd want to try out many values for y one by one, preferably coming from some text file. I can't figure out any way of doing this in ab or httperf. I'm open to using a different benchmarking program if I have, but would prefer something simple and light. What I want to do seems like something pretty standard, so I'm guessing there must already be a program that let's me do it, but an hour or so of googling hasn't gotten me an answer. Ideas?

Answer: Jmeter (which is apparently awesome). This faq explains how to do it. Hopefully this helps someone else, as it took me like a day of searching to figure this out.

I have just had some good experience with using JavaScript (via BSF/Rhino) in JMeter.
I have put one thread group in my test plan and stick a 'Simple Controller' with two elements under it - 'HTTP Request' sampler and 'BSF PreProcessor'.
Set BSF language to 'javascript' and either type the code into the text box or point it to a file (use full path or relative to CWD of JMeter process).
/* Since `Math.random()` gives us float, we use `java.util.Random()`
* see: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Random.html */
var Random = new Packages.java.util.Random();
var min = 10-1;
var max = 2;
var maxLines = (min)+Random.nextInt(max-min);
var s = '';
for (var d = 0; d <= maxLines; d++) {
s += d.toString()+','+Random.nextInt(1000).toString()+'\n';
}
// s => '0,312\n1,104\n2,608\n'
vars.put('PAYLOAD', s);
Now I can refer to ${PAYLOAD} in the HTTP request!
You can generate JSON, but you will need to upgrade jakarta-jmeter-2.5.1/lib/js-1.6R5.jar with the newest version of Rhino to get JSON.stringify and JSON.parse. That worked perfectly for me also, though I thought I'd put a simple example here.
You can use BSF pre-processor for URL params as well, just set another variable with vars.put('X', 'some value') and pass it as ${X} in the request parameter.
This blog post helped quite a bit, by the way.