Json File Manipulation with Node

March 11, 2018

2 min read

In my office we have some large JSON files that occasionally need duplicated updates in mutliple places. Node.js makes working with these files incredibly easy with two features.

The first is that JSON files can be required as you import a module (require('file.json')) and then manipulated as if it were any other JavaScript object.

The second feature is not specific to Node, but is included in the JSON.stringify() function. The third parameter of .stringify() allows you to specify the number of spaces used when coverting a JavaScript object into a JSON string.

Finally, you can write your manipulated file string back into a .json file with fs.writeFile().

#examples

const fs = require('fs');
const jsonFile = require('./file.json');

jsonFile.newAttribute = false;
delete jsonFile.oldAttribute;

fs.writeFile('newFile.json', JSON.stringify(jsonFile, null, 2));

#sources

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/JSON/stringify https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_writefile_file_data_options_callback