json-stable-stringify

deterministic version of JSON.stringify() so you can get a consistent hash from stringified results

You can also pass in a custom comparison function.

example

var stringify = require('json-stable-stringify');
var obj = { c: 8, b: [{z:6,y:5,x:4},7], a: 3 };
console.log(stringify(obj));

output:

{"a":3,"b":[{"x":4,"y":5,"z":6},7],"c":8}

methods

var stringify = require('json-stable-stringify')

var str = stringify(obj, opts)

Return a deterministic stringified string str from the object obj.

options

cmp

If opts is given, you can supply an opts.cmp to have a custom comparison function for object keys. Your function opts.cmp is called with these parameters:

opts.cmp({ key: akey, value: avalue }, { key: bkey, value: bvalue })

For example, to sort on the object key names in reverse order you could write:

var stringify = require('json-stable-stringify');

var obj = { c: 8, b: [{z:6,y:5,x:4},7], a: 3 };
var s = stringify(obj, function (a, b) {
    return a.key < b.key ? 1 : -1;
});
console.log(s);

which results in the output string:

{"c":8,"b":[{"z":6,"y":5,"x":4},7],"a":3}

Or if you wanted to sort on the object values in reverse order, you could write:

var stringify = require('json-stable-stringify');

var obj = { d: 6, c: 5, b: [{z:3,y:2,x:1},9], a: 10 };
var s = stringify(obj, function (a, b) {
    return a.value < b.value ? 1 : -1;
});
console.log(s);

which outputs:

{"d":6,"c":5,"b":[{"z":3,"y":2,"x":1},9],"a":10}

space

If you specify opts.space, it will indent the output for pretty-printing. Valid values are strings (e.g. {space: \t}) or a number of spaces ({space: 3}).

For example:

var obj = { b: 1, a: { foo: 'bar', and: [1, 2, 3] } };
var s = stringify(obj, { space: '  ' });
console.log(s);

which outputs:

{
  "a": {
    "and": [
      1,
      2,
      3
    ],
    "foo": "bar"
  },
  "b": 1
}

replacer

The replacer parameter is a function opts.replacer(key, value) that behaves the same as the replacer from the core JSON object.

pretty

If you specify opts.pretty: true the stringified text will be formatted as Javascript instead of JSON, similar to util.inspect().

For example:

var obj = { one: 1, two: { b: 4, a: [2,3] } };
var s = stringify(obj, { pretty: true });
console.log(s);

which outputs:

{one:1,two:{a:[2,3],b:4}}

Or if also using space:

var obj = { one: 1, two: { b: 4, a: [2,3] } };
var s = stringify(obj, { pretty: true, space: '  ' });
console.log(s);

which outputs:

{
  one: 1,
  two: {
    a: [
      2,
      3
    ],
    b: 4
  }
}

sortarrays

If you specify opts.sortarrays: true all arrays in the output will be sorted. This can be useful in situations where an array is used with the semantics of an unordered collection.

For example:

var obj = { one: 1, two: { b: 4, a: [9,3] } };
var s = stringify(obj, { sortarrays: true });
console.log(s);

which outputs:

{"one":1,"two":{"a":[3,9],"b":4}}

undef

By default, if an object has a key whose value is undefined, the key will not be shown in the stringified output. The option {undef: true} will display the key

For example:

var obj = { a: 3, z: undefined };
var s = stringify(obj);
console.log('Default: ', s);
var t = stringify(obj, {undef: true});
console.log('With undef: ', t);

which outputs:

Default: {"a":3}
With undef: {"a":3,z:undefined}

install

With npm do:

npm install json-stable-stringify

license

MIT