grunt-dir2json
Flatten a folder to a JSON file representing its contents
Often, your project will depend on data in static files - configs, language files, templates, CSV data, and so on. Loading each of these files separately is a nuisance, and results in unnecessary HTTP requests.
This task combines all those files into a single .json file. For example if you had a folder that looked like this...
data
|- config.json
|- tables
|- population.csv
|- growth.csv
|- slides
|- 0.txt
|- 1.txt
|- 2.txt
|- 3.txt
|- i18n
|- en-GB.json
|- en-US.json
|- fr.json
|- de.json
...you would get JSON that looked something like this, except minified:
"config": // contents of config.json "tables": "population": // contents of population.csv "growth": // contents of growth.csv "slides": "contents of 0.txt" "contents of 1.txt" "contents of 2.txt" "contents of 3.txt" "i18n": "en-GB": // contents of en-GB.json "en-US": // contents of en-US.json "fr": // contents of fr.json "de": // contents of de.json
If a file contains JSON, it is stored as JSON; if not, it is stored as text. If a folder only contains items with numeric filenames (as in the case of the slides
folder above), it will become an array rather than an object.
Getting Started
This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.0
If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:
npm install grunt-dir2json --save-dev
One the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:
grunt;
The "dir2json" task
Overview
In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named dir2json
to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig()
.
grunt
Options
exclude
Type: String
or Array
A pattern, or array of patterns, of filenames to exclude, e.g. **/*/notes.md
. Uses the standard globbing syntax. .DS_Store
and Thumbs.db
files will always be excluded - you don't need to specify these.
processContent
Type: Function ( content, srcpath )
A function to process content. Will be applied to all files - if you want to selectively apply, filter by srcpath
replacer
Type: Function
or Array
Transforms values and properties when stringifying JSON. See the MDN docs
space
Type: String
Pretty-prints the result using this string. See the MDN docs
jsonpCallback
Type: String
If supplied, dir2json will create JSONP instead of JSON (note that the destination filename should end .js
and not .json
in this case)
amd
Type: Boolean
If true
, dir2json will create an AMD module (as above, extension should be .js
)
Usage Examples
Default Options
This will read the contents of project/data
and write a JSON file representing its contents to project/src/data.json
:
grunt
Custom Options
In this (slightly contrived) example, there are two targets - dev
and dist
. In both cases .md files will be excluded, and .csv files will be parsed using an imaginary csv-to-json
module. In the dist
target, any files named debug_hints.json
will also be excluded.
grunt
Contributing
In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.
Release History
- 0.1.0 - first release
- 0.1.1 - trailing slashes in 'root' option are now ignored
- 0.1.2 - AMD, JSONP and pretty-print options