CSVJSON json_beautifier() function

Single function json_beautifier to beautify and format JSON or JavaScript objects. Used to power CSVJSON the online tool found at www.csvjson.com/json_beautifier. Used by thousands everyday.

Very useful if you want to tidy your JSON or JavaScript object for documentation purposes. Inline arrays, drop quotes, etc.

npm package here

Usage

Call json_beautifier(object, options) where object is the JavaScript object to be converted to JSON. You may pass argument options to specify beautifying and formatting options:

space: The number of spaces to indent. Default is 2.
quoteType: You can change double quotes to single quotes ' if you like to. Will make for invalid JSON but valid Javascript. Default is ".
dropQuotesOnKeys: JSON wraps keys with double quotes by default. Javascript doesn't need them though. Set to true to drop them. Will make for invalid JSON but valid Javascript. Default is false.
dropQuotesOnNumbers: Set to true to parse number values and drop quotes around them. Default is false.
inlineShortArrays: Set to true to collpase arrays inline if less than 80 characters. Default is false.
inlineShortArraysDepth: If you turned on the above option, your can limit the nesting depth. Default is 1.
minify: Set to true to simply compact the JSON. Removes indentations and new lines. Default is false.

Dependency

Function json_beautifier depends on the JSON2_mod function - a fork of David Crockford's JSON2 with extra switches to format the output JSON.

Node example

In this example we drop quotes on values that are numbers. We also inline short arrays to reduce the number of lines to display.

const json_beautifier = require('./json_beautifier.js');
const object = {"pi": "3.14159265359", "e": "2.7182818284", "prime": [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19], "1+6": 7};
const json = json_beautifier(object, {dropQuotesOnNumbers: true, inlineShortArrays: true});
console.log(json);

Result:

{
  "pi": 3.14159265359,
  "e": 2.7182818284,
  "prime": [ 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 ],
  "1+6": 7
}

Browser example

Same example as above but run in the browser. Note: In the browser, global namespace CSVJSON is created. It contains the json_beautifier function.

<script type="text/javascript" src="json2-mod.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="json_beautifier.js"></script>
<script>
  const object = {"pi": "3.14159265359", "e": "2.7182818284", "prime": [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19], "1+6": 7};
  const json = CSVJSON.json_beautifier(object, {dropQuotesOnNumbers: true, inlineShortArrays: true});
  console.log(json);
</script>

More examples

Removing double quotes on keys (where possible). Invalid JSON but valid Javascript.

const json_beautifier = require('./json_beautifier.js');
const object = {"pi": "3.14159265359", "e": "2.7182818284", "prime": [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19], "1+6": 7};
const json = json_beautifier(object, {
  dropQuotesOnKeys: true,
  dropQuotesOnNumbers: true,
  inlineShortArrays: true
});
console.log(json);

Result:

{
  pi: 3.14159265359,
  e: 2.7182818284,
  prime: [ 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 ],
  "1+6": 7
}

Minifying JSON.

const json_beautifier = require('./json_beautifier.js');
const object = {"pi": "3.14159265359", "e": "2.7182818284", "prime": [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19], "1+6": 7};
const json = json_beautifier(object, {
  dropQuotesOnNumbers: true,
  minify: true
});
console.log(json);

Result:

{"pi":3.14159265359,"e":2.7182818284,"prime":[2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19],"1+6":7}

Parsing and validating a JSON string.

If your JSON is a string, you can use the native JSON.parse() function provided by the browser and node.

Tests

Run the tests in your browser by opening test-browser.html.

Run the tests through node:

node test-node.js

Companion functions

csv2json to convert CSV to JSON. npm package here.

json2csv to convert JSON to CSV. npm package here.

JSON2_mod a replacement of JSON with more options to format your JSON. npm package here.