Parsing JSON file to csv

Question

I am trying to parse JSON file to csv. I've found a json2csv library and it works beside the fact that it expects the json file to be arranged in this way:

[
{
column: value,
column2: value2 
},
{
column: value3,
column2: value4 
}
]

While my layout for JSON file (that comes from linguiJS for translations) looks like this:

{
 value1 :{
column2: value2,
column3: value3,
}
}

So it returns a file formatted horizontally, like this:

Converter js:

const converter = require('json-2-csv');
const fs = require('fs');

const file = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('./locale/fr/messages.json'));

converter.json2csv(file, (err, csv) => {
    if (err) {
        throw err;
    }

    console.log(csv)

    fs.writeFileSync('./localisation.csv', csv);
});

What's the easiest way to solve this for a very beginner?

It would help a little bit more if you provide a more precise example in your input JSON. Using the same value/column in your input and output would help to understand what you need. It seems to me that you are only manipulating JSON files, therefore doing it outside of reactjs / react-native would allow you to use dedicated tool like `jq` for instance. If you are doing inside an app -> please provide some javascript context. — Raphael Pr, Sep 02 '20 at 09:59
Thank's for a reply - i've added a simple converter code that i am currently using to parse and convert data. — Daniel Minder, Sep 02 '20 at 10:15
https://stackoverflow.com/a/31536517/3237884 , this answer could be helpful — nazmul, Sep 02 '20 at 10:21
`json2csv` works **because** it expects a specific layout, or rather, it expects an array of objects. What you posted is a single object with a single object property that in turn has two simple properties. How do you expect that to appear in a file? As a single flattened row? What happens to `value1` then, is it discarded? — Panagiotis Kanavos, Sep 02 '20 at 10:23
BTW [json2csv](https://mircozeiss.com/json2csv/) seems to support flattening nested objects already. — Panagiotis Kanavos, Sep 02 '20 at 10:25

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 02 '20 at 11:55

You should probably do something like:

// ...
const file = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('./locale/fr/messages.json'));

const formattedFile = Object.entries(file).map((key, values) => {
  // You can defined your desired format here ->
  return { 'messageId': key, ...values }
})

converter.json2csv(formattedFile, (err, csv) => {
// ...

Parsing JSON file to csv

1 Answers1