JSON Paring Knife (jpk)

Simple CLI tool for paring entries out of JSON files and migrating them to new files.

The intent of this tool is to move identical keys that exist across multiple JSON files to a new folder, matching each of the original filenames. It was built for the use case of i18n strings being stored in per-language JSON files, e.g. in folder Component/translations/ you have en.json, fr.json, ko.json... and want to delete certain entries in these files and copy them to new files in another folder NewComponent/translations/.

It assumes that all JSON files in a given folder have an identical shape; at the moment it does not (gracefully) handle other cases.

Installation

The package is available from NPM under the name json-paring-knife.

npm install -g json-paring-knife

Alternatively, you can also clone this repo and run this from the repo root:

npm install -g

Check for a successful installation with json-paring-knife -v; it should print the package's version number.

Usage

The script can be run with json-paring-knife or the shorthand jpk. All script arguments are available in verbose and shorthand equivalents (e.g. --source == -s).

list

List all available keys from the JSON file passed in as --source.

jpk list --source ./Component/translations/en.json

If a folder is provided, it uses the first JSON file in the folder. Again, this is because it's expecting all JSON files in the folder to have the same shape.

jpk list -s ./Component/translations/

pare

Pare selected --keys from --source, save to --destination folder.

If --source is a single file, it only pares that file.

jpk pare --source ./Component/translations/en.json --destination ./NewComponent/translations/ --keys keyOne,keyTwo.nestedKey.deepNestedKey,keyThree

If --source is a folder, it pares all JSON files in that folder.

jpk pare -s ./Component/translations/ -d ./NewComponent/translations/ -k keyOne,keyTwo.nestedKey.deepNestedKey,keyThree

Example

Starting with these files:

// Component/translations/en.json
{
  "1": "one",
  "2": {
    "a": "two aye",
    "b": "two bee"
  },
  "3": {
    "a": {
      "i": "three aye one",
      "ii": "three aye two"
    },
    "b": "three bee"
  },
  "4": "four",
  "5": {
    "a": "five aye"
  }
}

// Component/translations/fr.json
{
  "1": "un",
  "2": {
    "a": "deux ah",
    "b": "deux bay"
  },
  "3": {
    "a": {
      "i": "trois ah un",
      "ii": "trois ah deux"
    },
    "b": "trois bay"
  },
  "4": "quatre",
  "5": {
    "a": "cinq ah"
  }
}

Get a list of the keys you can select:

jpk list -s ./Component/translations/en.json

# Result
All keys in the file ./Component/translations/en.json:
  1
  2.a
  2.b
  3.a.i
  3.a.ii
  3.b
  4
  5.a

Pare the keys 3.a and 4 from source folder ./Component/translations/, move to destination folder ./NewComponent/translations/:

jpk pare -s ./Component/translations/ -d ./NewComponent/translations/ -k 3.a,4

Resulting original files:

// ./Component/translations/en.json
{
  "1": "one",
  "2": {
    "a": "two aye",
    "b": "two bee"
  },
  "3": {
    "b": "three bee"
  },
  "5": {
    "a": "five aye"
  }
}

// ./Component/translations/fr.json
{
  "1": "un",
  "2": {
    "a": "deux ah",
    "b": "deux bay"
  },
  "3": {
    "b": "trois bay"
  },
  "5": {
    "a": "cinq ah"
  }
}

Resulting new files:

// ./NewComponent/translations/en.json
{
  "3": {
    "a": {
      "i": "three aye one",
      "ii": "three aye two"
    }
  },
  "4": "four"
}

// ./NewComponent/translations/fr.json
{
  "3": {
    "a": {
      "i": "trois ah un",
      "ii": "trois ah deux"
    }
  },
  "4": "quatre"
}