Massage a JSON File With a Node.js Script

Published: Jan 27, 2020
Updated: Feb 16, 2024

At work, some of our projects keep test data in large JSON files. These files are usually structured as an array of objects, which can be thousands of lines long. When I need to make changes, manually find-and-replacing can only get me so far. I can get cleverer with vscode’s regex mode, but still, I am limited.

I need an object-oriented way to massage these JSON files. Most languages these days support working with JSON, but I find JavaScript’s syntax to be the most pleasant. Enter Node.js – it’s JavaScript, for your local filesystem, and so much more.

Given a JSON file named input.json that is an array of objects.

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "firstName": "Bruce",
    "lastName": "Wayne",
    "powers": [
      "Indomitable Will",
      "Peak Human Conditioning",
      "Martial Arts Master"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "firstName": "Clark",
    "lastName": "Kent",
    "powers": [
      "Flight",
      "Superhuman Strenth",
      "Heat Vision"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": 3,
    "firstName": "Oliver",
    "lastName": "Queen",
    "powers": [
      "Acrobatics",
      "Archery",
      "Swordsmanship"
    ]
  }
]

The following Node.js script loops through each object and shows how to add a node, delete a node, and change the data type of a node. These changes are arbitrary, but they give you an example to go off of. Run the script with something like node ./script.js.

const fs = require('fs');

function readJsonFile(filePath) {
  console.log(`Reading JSON file from [${filePath}]`);
  return JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(filePath, 'utf8'));
}

function writeJsonFile(filePath, json) {
  console.log(`Writing JSON file to [${filePath}]`);
  fs.writeFileSync(filePath, JSON.stringify(json, null, 2));
}

function main() {
  const inputFilePath = './input.json';
  const outputFilePath = './output.json';
  const json = readJsonFile(inputFilePath);
  console.log(`JSON file has [${json.length}] objects`);

  json.forEach(object => {
    // add a node name which combines the firstName and lastName nodes
    object.name = `${object.firstName} ${object.lastName}`;

    // delete the firstName and lastName nodes
    delete object.firstName;
    delete object.lastName;

    // delete the first power
    object.powers.splice(0, 1);

    // convert the id node from a number to a string
    object.id = object.id.toString();
  });

  writeJsonFile(outputFilePath, json);
}

main();

The script will output the result to a file named output.json.

[
  {
    "id": "1",
    "powers": [
      "Peak Human Conditioning",
      "Martial Arts Master"
    ],
    "name": "Bruce Wayne"
  },
  {
    "id": "2",
    "powers": [
      "Superhuman Strenth",
      "Heat Vision"
    ],
    "name": "Clark Kent"
  },
  {
    "id": "3",
    "powers": [
      "Archery",
      "Swordsmanship"
    ],
    "name": "Oliver Queen"
  }
]

For more massaging power, use the Lodash library. For working with dates in any format you can think of, checkout the Moment.js library.