Can't parse JSON because of trailing whitespaces in JSON String

Question

I'm currently working on a web scraper and I'm getting the JSON from <script type="application/ld+json> on a particular web page. I get it as a string using Cheerio and pass it on a JSON parser (npm package). But I keep on getting a syntax error and this happens if the value has a trailing white space.

I tried the reviver by trimming each value but it still doesn't work.

This is a snippet of my JSON string where I get a Syntax Error:

{"...821", "description":"                                                  \r\n
                                ","@type":"Organization",...}

This is the error that I'm getting:

ErrorEXError [JSONError]: Unexpected token       in JSON at position 1432 while parsing near '...821","description":"                                                \r\n                                             ","...'

How can I trim the description value without string manipulation?

without string manipulation? Huh? You'll have to manipulate the string somehow in order to change it to make it parseable, what do you mean? — CertainPerformance
– CertainPerformance, Commented Sep 25, 2019 at 1:57

CertainPerformance · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-25 02:01:23Z

2

A properly formatted JSON string must not contain any literal newline characters - it can only contain representations of newline characters, such as with \r\n. Replace all literal newlines with \n, and you should be able to parse it properly:

const jsonStr = `{"description":"                                                  \r\n
                                ","@type":"Organization"}`;
const jsonStrWithoutNewlines = jsonStr.replace(/[\n\r]+/g, '\\n');
const obj = JSON.parse(jsonStrWithoutNewlines);
console.log(obj);

Literal tab characters aren't permitted either - if that's an issue, replace them with \t:

const jsonStr = `{"description":"                                                  \r\n
                                ","@type":"Organization			"}`;
const jsonStrWithoutNewlines = jsonStr
  .replace(/[\n\r]+/g, '\\n')
  .replace(/\t/g, '\\t');
const obj = JSON.parse(jsonStrWithoutNewlines);
console.log(obj);

answered Sep 25, 2019 at 2:01

CertainPerformance

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1 Comment

user2864740 Over a year ago

Yet another example how JSON is overused for “human editable” configuration files..

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