TypeScript error TS5014: Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0

Question

I am trying to compile a .ts to .js

I have tsconfig.json as below

{ "compilerOptions": {     "target": "es5",     "module": "commonjs",     "sourceMap": true,     "outFile": "build/test.js" }, "exclude": [     "node_modules"     ] } 

below is my package.json

{     "name": "test",     "version": "1.0.0",     "description": "",     "main": "index.js",     "scripts": {         "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"     },     "author": "",     "license": "ISC",     "dependencies": {         "tsc": "^1.20150623.0",         "typescript": "^2.4.2"     } } 

and the auto generated tasks.json looks like below

{ // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558 // for the documentation about the tasks.json format "version": "2.0.0", "tasks": [     {         "type": "typescript",         "tsconfig": "tsconfig.json",         "problemMatcher": [             "$tsc"         ],         "group": {             "kind": "build",             "isDefault": true         }     }] } 

When I try to run the build task, I am getting the below error

Executing task: <myprojloc>\node_modules\.bin\tsc.cmd  -p "<myprojloc>\tsconfig.json" <  error TS5014: Failed to parse file '<myprojloc>/tsconfig.json/tsconfig.json': Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0.  Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it. 

What I am doing wrong? Please, note I have added the versions in package.json

Answer 1

I would like to put in that you also see this error when you forgot to add 'typescript' as a dependency.

npm install typescript 

should fix that.

Note that this dependency is present in the package.json in the question.

Answer 2

If you look at the error message carefully, you can see the reason for the failure. The command line that was formed to run tsc is looking at the wrong directory. It was looking at <myprojloc>/tsconfig.json/ instead of <myprojloc>/. See how tsconfig.json is repeated twice in the error?

error TS5014: Failed to parse file '<myprojloc>/tsconfig.json/tsconfig.json': Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0.

Running npm install typescript --save-dev worked for me, but I can see how editing the task and specifying the command to look in the right directory for tsconfig.json would solve the problem too.