Question

I’m reading json files in Node.js using require("fs").

Something like:

var readJsonFromFile= function(fileLocation, callback){
      fs.readFile(fileLocation, 'utf8', function (err, data) {
          if (err) {
            return callback(err);
          }

          data = JSON.parse(data);
          callback(null,data);
    });
}

However, I noticed JSON.parse:

• doesn’t allow comments // bla or /* blaa */
• requires keys to be quoted.

Although I realize this is technically correct, I’d like to know if any small library exists which cleans my often annotated json-files to guarentee the above. (And no, it’s not completely trivial DIY, think // as part of valid values, etc. )

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes! I use JSON.minify by Kyle Simpson for this very purpose:

https://github.com/getify/JSON.minify

It isn’t a full-blown Node module, but it works very well for loading JSON-like config files and such. Note that you still have to quote your keys, but it does allow for comments.

var config = JSON.parse(JSON.minify(fs.readFileSync(configFileName, 'utf8')));