My team is building an API with Node.js that processes large JSON files (up to 500MB). We tried parsing these files using JSON.parse, but the application runs out of memory, then crashes.
currently using the following code
const fs = require('fs');
fs.readFile('largeFile.json', 'utf8', (err, data) => {
if (err) throw err;
const jsonData = JSON.parse(data);
// Processing the JSON data here...
});
I have read about possible memory issues with large files in Node.js. How can I efficiently handle and process large JSON data without consuming too much memory? Are there any best practices or libraries that can help?
2
You can use popular streaming json libraries:
stream-json: A flexible and efficient stream-based JSON parser for Node.js.
JSONStream: Parses large JSON files into manageable chunks.
clarinet: A SAX-style evented streaming JSON parser.
Implementation Using JSONStream:
const fs = require('fs');
const JSONStream = require('JSONStream');
const stream = fs.createReadStream('largeFile.json', { encoding: 'utf8' });
const parser = JSONStream.parse('*'); // Adjust the pattern according to your JSON structure
stream.pipe(parser);
parser.on('data', (data) => {
// Process each JSON object here
console.log('Processing data:', data);
// Your processing logic...
});
parser.on('end', () => {
console.log('Finished processing all items.');
});
parser.on('error', (err) => {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
});
i hope this will work for you