Fork information: This is a maintained fork which implements these additional options: maxNesting, arrayMargins, and objectMargins.

Overview

The output of JSON.stringify comes in two flavors: compact and pretty. The former is usually too compact to be read by humans, while the latter sometimes is too spacious. This module trades performance (and the “replacer” argument) for a compromise between the two. The result is a pretty compact string, where “pretty” means both “kind of” and “nice”.

{
  "bool": true,
  "short array": [1, 2, 3],
  "long array": [
    {"x": 1, "y": 2},
    {"x": 2, "y": 1},
    {"x": 1, "y": 1},
    {"x": 2, "y": 2}
  ]
}

While the “pretty” mode of JSON.stringify puts every item of arrays and objects on its own line, this module puts the whole array or object on a single line, unless the line becomes too long (the default maximum is 80 characters). Making arrays and objects multi-line is the only attempt made to enforce the maximum line length; if that doesn’t help then so be it.

Installation

npm install @aitodotai/json-stringify-pretty-compact

var stringify = require("json-stringify-pretty-compact")

Usage

stringify(obj, [options])

It’s like JSON.stringify(obj, null, options.indent), except that objects and arrays are on one line if they fit (according to options.maxLength).

options:

• indent: Defaults to 2. Works exactly like the third parameter of JSON.stringify.

• maxLength: Defaults to 80. Lines will be tried to be kept at maximum this many characters long.

• maxNesting: Defaults to Infinity. The maximum amount of allowed inline nesting for objects or arrays

  By default, the output can contain arbitrary amount of nested structures (as long as the maxLength is not exceeded), like below:

  {"a": [{"b": ["test1", "test2"]}, {"c": true}]}}

  When maxNesting is set to 0, the output doesn't allow any nesting:

  {
    "a": [
      {
        "b": [
          "test1",
          "test2"
        ]
      },
      {
        "c": true
      }
    ]
  }

• margins: Defaults to false. Whether or not to add “margins” around brackets and braces:

  • false: {"a": [1]}
  • true: { "a": [ 1 ] }

• arrayMargins: Defaults to false. Whether or not to add “margins” around brackets:

  • false: {"a": [1]}
  • true: {"a": [ 1 ]}

• arrayMargins: Defaults to true. Whether or not to add “margins” around braces:

  • false: {"a": [1]}
  • true: { "a": [1] }

stringify(obj, {maxLength: 0, indent: indent}) gives the exact same result as JSON.stringify(obj, null, indent).

stringify(obj, {maxLength: Infinity}) gives the exact same result as JSON.stringify(obj), except that there are spaces after colons and commas.

Releasing

Example of publishing new release with patch change:

npm run publish -- patch

License

MIT.