Ruby json parse error: unexpected token

Question

I have a working method that opens and parses a json file. Now I'm trying to iterate through a directory of json files and display their contents.

Working method for a single file:

def aperson
  File.open("people/Elvis Presley.json") do |f|
    parse = JSON.parse(f.read) 
  end
end

Non-working method to iterate through a directory:

16. def list
17.   Dir.glob('people/*').each do |f|
18.     parse = JSON.parse(f) 
19    end
20. end

My error is:

/Users/ad/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/json/common.rb:148:in `parse': 743: unexpected token at 'people/Elvis Presley.json' (JSON::ParserError)
    from /Users/ad/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/json/common.rb:148:in `parse'
    from app.rb:18:in `block in list'
    from app.rb:17:in `each'
    from app.rb:17:in `list'
    from app.rb:24:in `<main>'

All of the files in the directory have the same content and are valis as per JSONlint.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

nneonneo · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-23 04:10:03Z

9

You tried to parse the filename as JSON, which won't work.

Instead, you need to read the file first:

parse = JSON.parse(File.read(f))

answered Oct 23, 2012 at 4:10

nneonneo

181k37 gold badges331 silver badges412 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

Anthony Over a year ago

Thanks but instead of getting the content of each file I get a listing of the files: people/Anthony DeFreitas.json people/Elvis Presley.json people/Seth Godin.json people/Steve McQueen.json

nneonneo Over a year ago

Well, you need to do something with the result of parse. Otherwise, you're just going to get the result from Dir.glob (which is the list of filenames). Maybe you wanted to append the parsed data to a list?

Anthony Over a year ago

Thanks, I guess I wrote the code wrong as I wanted to display the contents of each file and not just the file names. Thanks for your help nneonneo.

user904990 · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-23 04:08:52Z

4

not sure, but can you try to parse the content of file instead of file name:

parse = JSON.parse( File.read f )

answered Oct 23, 2012 at 4:08

user904990

3 Comments

willglynn Over a year ago

"people/#{f}" won't exist; f already contains the expanded filename. But yeah, he's trying to read a filename and not the file contents.

willglynn Over a year ago

Your revised solution is identical to the code that doesn't work.

Anthony Over a year ago

My goal is to read the contents of each file, sorry for not making that clear.

HungryCoder · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-23 04:13:03Z

1

In your non-working code, f is just string of the expanded file name. So you need to read the file after you've received the filename in the block.

While writing it, @nneonneo already gave you solution. So I'm not giving again.

answered Oct 23, 2012 at 4:13

HungryCoder

7,6161 gold badge41 silver badges52 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Ruby json parse error: unexpected token

3 Answers 3

3 Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

3 Comments

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related