convert txt file to json in nodejs

Question

I have a .txt file which consists of pipe delimited data. Like below.

HEADER1|HEADER2|HEADER3
Value1|Value2|Value3
Value4|Value5|Value6
Value7|Value8|Value9

I want to able to return array of objects like the following from the text file.

[
  { HEADER1: 'Value1', HEADER2: "Value2", HEADER3: 'Value3' },
  { HEADER1: 'Value4', HEADER2: "Value5", HEADER3: 'Value6' },
  { HEADER1: 'Value7', HEADER2: "Value8", HEADER3: 'Value9' }
]

How can I achieve this?

Check this answer, it could help you : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1560464/how-to-reformat-json-in-notepad#:~:text=Viewer%20%2D%3E%20Click%20Install-,Restart%20notepad%2B%2B,%3E%20JSON%20Viewer%20%2D%3E%20Format%20JSON — Nour Eddine, Jul 20 '20 at 10:14

tarkh · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-20T11:14:40.790

4

Well, the simple approach is this:

// Raw data
const raw = `HEADER1|HEADER2|HEADER3
Value1|Value2|Value3
Value4|Value5|Value6
Value7|Value8|Value9`;

// Or load raw data from file
const fs = require('fs');
const raw = (fs.readFileSync('file.txt')).toString();

// Split data by lines
const data = raw.split('\n');

// Extract array of headers and
// cut it from data
const headers = (data.shift()).split('|');

// Define target JSON array
let json = [];

// Loop data
for(let i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
  // Remove empty lines
  if(/^\s*$/.test(data[i])) continue;
  // Split data line on cells
  const contentCells = data[i].split('|');
  // Loop cells
  let jsonLine = {};
  for(let i = 0; i < contentCells.length; i++) jsonLine[headers[i]] = contentCells[i];
  // Push new line to json array
  json.push(jsonLine);
}

// Result
console.log(json);

Example is here

edited Jul 20 '20 at 11:14

answered Jul 20 '20 at 10:28

tarkh

2,424
1
9
12

1

@user2281858 Why downvoted? It's actually works as you need... – tarkh Jul 20 '20 at 10:49
1

some one else did. – user2281858 Jul 20 '20 at 10:55
it appends `\r\ in the end. how to remove that? – user2281858 Jul 20 '20 at 11:00
If there is an empty line in the end of your txt file, then it will add one more line to your final array. We can add line checker for cases like that to our for loop (I'll edit answer): if(/^\s*$/.test(data[i])) continue; – tarkh Jul 20 '20 at 11:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 20 '20 at 09:47

1

Have a look at csv2json. You can use pipe as custom separator

answered Jul 20 '20 at 09:47

Thinh Tran

146
6

Why is this downvoted? Seems like a legit solution with the given requirements. – MauriceNino Jul 20 '20 at 09:55
@Thinh Tran I tried this alrerady. Does not work properly. – user2281858 Jul 20 '20 at 10:01

Abdulrahman Falyoun · Answer 3 · 2020-07-20T09:58:03.310

A core module is called readline would be the best option

const fs = require('fs');
const readline = require('readline');

async function processLineByLine() {
  const fileStream = fs.createReadStream('input.txt');

  const rl = readline.createInterface({
    input: fileStream,
    crlfDelay: Infinity
  });
  // Note: we use the crlfDelay option to recognize all instances of CR LF
  // ('\r\n') in input.txt as a single line break.

  const finalResult = [];
  let keys = [];
  let i = 0;
  for await (const line of rl) {
     //Extract first line as keys
     if(i === 0) keys = line.split('|');
     else {
        const lineArray = line.split('|');
        const result = keys.reduce((o, k, i) => ({...o, [k]: lineArray[i]}), {});
       // Or try
       // result = Object.assign(...keys.map((k, i) => ({[k]: lineArray[i]})));

      // Or
      // let result = {};
      // keys.forEach((key, i) => result[key] = lineArray[i]);

        finalResult.push(result);
        console.log(result);
     }
     i++;

  }
  return finalResult;
}

processLineByLine();

convert txt file to json in nodejs

3 Answers3