How can I parse through local JSON file in React js?

Question

How can I parse through a JSON file retrieving all its data and using it in my code?

I've tried importing the file and just tried console logging it, but all it does is print Object {}:

import jsonData from "./file.json";
console.log(jsonData);

This is what my file.json looks like:

[
    {
      "id": 1,
      "gender": "Female",
      "first_name": "Helen",
      "last_name": "Nguyen",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "ip_address": "227.211.25.18"
    }, {
      "id": 2,
      "gender": "Male",
      "first_name": "Carlos",
      "last_name": "Fowler",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "ip_address": "214.248.201.11"
    }
]

I'd want to be able to access the first and last name of each component and print those on the website.

Answer 1

var data = require('../../file.json'); // forward slashes will depend on the file location

var data = [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "gender": "Female",
      "first_name": "Helen",
      "last_name": "Nguyen",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "ip_address": "227.211.25.18"
    }, {
      "id": 2,
      "gender": "Male",
      "first_name": "Carlos",
      "last_name": "Fowler",
      "email": "[email protected]",
      "ip_address": "214.248.201.11"
    }
];

for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++)
{
    var obj = data[i];
    console.log(`Name: ${obj.last_name}, ${obj.first_name}`);
}

https://jsfiddle.net/c9wupvo6/

Answer 2

Applications packaged with webpack 2.0.0+ (such as those created with create-react-app) support imports from json exactly as in the question (see this answer.

Be aware that import caches the result, even if that result is parsed json, so if you modify that object, other modules that also import it have references to the same object, not a newly parsed copy.

To get a "clean" copy, you can make a function that clones it such as:

import jsonData from './file.json';

const loadData = () => JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(jsonData));

Or if you're using lodash:

import jsonData from './file.json';
import { cloneDeep } from 'lodash';

const loadData = () => cloneDeep(jsonData);