json-parse-even-better-errors
json-parse-even-better-errors
is a Node.js library for getting nicer errors out of
JSON.parse(), including context and position of the parse
errors.
It also preserves the newline and indentation styles of the JSON
data, by putting them in the object or array in the
Symbol.for('indent') and Symbol.for('newline')
properties.
Install
$ npm install --save json-parse-even-better-errors
Table of Contents
Example
const parseJson = require('json-parse-even-better-errors')
parseJson('"foo"') // returns the string 'foo'
parseJson('garbage') // more useful error message
parseJson.noExceptions('garbage') // returns undefinedFeatures
- Like JSON.parse, but the errors are better.
- Strips a leading byte-order-mark that you sometimes get reading files.
- Has a
noExceptionsmethod that returns undefined rather than throwing. - Attaches the newline character(s) used to the
Symbol.for('newline')property on objects and arrays. - Attaches the indentation character(s) used to the
Symbol.for('indent')property on objects and arrays.
Indentation
To preserve indentation when the file is saved back to disk, use
data[Symbol.for('indent')] as the third argument to
JSON.stringify, and if you want to preserve windows
\r\n newlines, replace the \n chars in the
string with data[Symbol.for('newline')].
For example:
const txt = await readFile('./package.json', 'utf8')
const data = parseJsonEvenBetterErrors(txt)
const indent = Symbol.for('indent')
const newline = Symbol.for('newline')
// .. do some stuff to the data ..
const string = JSON.stringify(data, null, data[indent]) + '\n'
const eolFixed = data[newline] === '\n' ? string
: string.replace(/\n/g, data[newline])
await writeFile('./package.json', eolFixed)Indentation is determined by looking at the whitespace between the
initial { and [ and the character that follows
it. If you have lots of weird inconsistent indentation, then it won’t
track that or give you any way to preserve it. Whether this is a bug or
a feature is debatable ;)
API
parse(txt, reviver = null, context = 20)
Works just like JSON.parse, but will include a bit more
information when an error happens, and attaches a
Symbol.for('indent') and Symbol.for('newline')
on objects and arrays. This throws a JSONParseError.
parse.noExceptions(txt, reviver = null)
Works just like JSON.parse, but will return
undefined rather than throwing an error.
class JSONParseError(er, text, context = 20, caller = null)
Extends the JavaScript SyntaxError class to parse the
message and provide better metadata.
Pass in the error thrown by the built-in JSON.parse, and
the text being parsed, and it’ll parse out the bits needed to be
helpful.
context defaults to 20.
Set a caller function to trim internal implementation
details out of the stack trace. When calling parseJson,
this is set to the parseJson function. If not set, then the
constructor defaults to itself, so the stack trace will point to the
spot where you call new JSONParseError.