How do I read a JSON file into (server) memory?

The easiest way I have found to do this is to just use require and the path to your JSON file.

For example, suppose you have the following JSON file.

test.json

{
  "firstName": "Joe",
  "lastName": "Smith"
}

You can then easily load this in your node.js application using require

var config = require('./test.json');
console.log(config.firstName + ' ' + config.lastName);

Answer for 2022, using ES6 module syntax and async/await

In modern JavaScript, this can be done as a one-liner, without the need to install additional packages:

import { readFile } from 'fs/promises';

let data = JSON.parse(await readFile("filename.json", "utf8"));

Add a try/catch block to handle exceptions as needed.

Asynchronous is there for a reason! Throws stone at @mihai

Otherwise, here is the code he used with the asynchronous version:

// Declare variables
var fs = require('fs'),
    obj

// Read the file and send to the callback
fs.readFile('path/to/file', handleFile)

// Write the callback function
function handleFile(err, data) {
    if (err) throw err
    obj = JSON.parse(data)
    // You can now play with your datas
}

At least in Node v8.9.1, you can just do

var json_data = require('/path/to/local/file.json');

and access all the elements of the JSON object.

In Node 8 you can use the built-in util.promisify() to asynchronously read a file like this

const {promisify} = require('util')
const fs = require('fs')
const readFileAsync = promisify(fs.readFile)

readFileAsync(`${__dirname}/my.json`, {encoding: 'utf8'})
  .then(contents => {
    const obj = JSON.parse(contents)
    console.log(obj)
  })
  .catch(error => {
    throw error
  })

Answer for 2023, using Import Attributes

import jsObject from "./test.json" with {type: "json"};
console.log(jsObject)

Dynamic import

const jsObject = await import("./test.json", {with: {type: "json"}});
console.log(jsObject);

Further information: tc39 / proposal-import-attributes

Using fs-extra package is quite simple:

Sync:

const fs = require('fs-extra')

const packageObj = fs.readJsonSync('./package.json')
console.log(packageObj.version) 

Async:

const fs = require('fs-extra')

const packageObj = await fs.readJson('./package.json')
console.log(packageObj.version) 

using node-fs-extra (async await)

const readJsonFile = async () => {
    const myJsonObject = await fs.readJson('./my_json_file.json');
    console.log(myJsonObject);
}

readJsonFile() // prints your json object

https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v6.x/docs/api/fs.html#fs_fs_readfile_file_options_callback

var fs = require('fs');  

fs.readFile('/etc/passwd', (err, data) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(data);
});  

// options
fs.readFile('/etc/passwd', 'utf8', callback);

https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v6.x/docs/api/fs.html#fs_fs_readfilesync_file_options

You can find all usage of Node.js at the File System docs!
hope this help for you!

function parseIt(){
    return new Promise(function(res){
        try{
            var fs = require('fs');
            const dirPath = 'K:\\merge-xml-junit\\xml-results\\master.json';
            fs.readFile(dirPath,'utf8',function(err,data){
                if(err) throw err;
                res(data);
        })}
        catch(err){
            res(err);
        }
    });
}

async function test(){
    jsonData = await parseIt();
    var parsedJSON = JSON.parse(jsonData);
    var testSuite = parsedJSON['testsuites']['testsuite'];
    console.log(testSuite);
}

test();

with ECMAscript module the answer above middly work. For ECMAscript we would obtain something of the type:

(asynchronous 'cause I run it on my server to obtain data I need before running some functions)

import { readFile } from 'fs/promises';

function import_json(path){
  return new Promise(async (resolve,reject)=>{
    try{
      const jsonData = await readFile(path, 'utf8');
      console.log(jsonData)
      resolve(JSON.parse(jsonData))
    }catch(e){
      reject("Error from import_json(): " + e)
    }
  })
}

async function(){
  const my_awesome_data = await import_json("./example_data.json")
}

So many answers, and no one ever made a benchmark to compare sync vs async vs require. I described the difference in use cases of reading json in memory via require, readFileSync and readFile here.

If you are looking for a complete solution for Async loading a JSON file from Relative Path with Error Handling

  // Global variables
  // Request path module for relative path
    const path = require('path')
  // Request File System Module
   var fs = require('fs');


// GET request for the /list_user page.
router.get('/listUsers', function (req, res) {
   console.log("Got a GET request for list of users");

     // Create a relative path URL
    let reqPath = path.join(__dirname, '../mock/users.json');

    //Read JSON from relative path of this file
    fs.readFile(reqPath , 'utf8', function (err, data) {
        //Handle Error
       if(!err) {
         //Handle Success
          console.log("Success"+data);
         // Parse Data to JSON OR
          var jsonObj = JSON.parse(data)
         //Send back as Response
          res.end( data );
        }else {
           //Handle Error
           res.end("Error: "+err )
        }
   });
})

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