Node Reading from Package.json

How do you simply read data from your package.json file?

Turn out its real easy.   Poking around I found this post 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9153571/is-there-a-way-to-get-version-from-package-json-in-nodejs-code [1]

Here my package.json file

{   "name": "MyApp",   "version": "1.0.0",   "description": "",   "main": "app.js",   "private": "true",   "scripts": {     "test": "mocha --recursive test",     "start-dev": "nodemon server.js",     "gen-idea": "jetbrains init"   },   "author": "Patrick Bailey",   "license": "ISC",   "devDependencies": {     "chai": "^2.2.0",     "chai2-json-schema": "^1.2.0",     "jetbrains": "^0.1.2",     "mocha": "^2.2.4",     "nodemon": "^1.3.7",     "superagent": "^1.1.0"   },   "dependencies": {     "config": "^1.12.0",     "express": "^4.12.3"   } }

Here is my app,js 

var express = require('express'); var config = require('config'); var pkgJSON = require('./package.json'); var app = express(); var server; var start = exports.start = function start(port, callback) {     server = app.listen(port, callback); }; var stop = exports.stop = function stop(callback) {     server.close(callback); }; app.get('/package-info', function sendResponse(req, res) {     res.json(         {             "name": pkgJSON.name,             "version": pkgJSON.version,             "devDependencies": pkgJSON.devDependencies,             "nodemon-script": pkgJSON.scripts["start-dev"],             "scripts-test" : pkgJSON.scripts.test         }); });

All you have to do is require the package.json file.  Turns out that the require will parse the JSON for you so no need to parse it yourself J

var pkgJSON = require('./package.json');

One issue I ran into was a JSON name that had a "-" dash in it.  You can't access it directly.

"nodemon-script": pkgJSON.scripts.start-dev,

This above won't work

So you have to put in in brackets like this.

"nodemon-script": pkgJSON.scripts["start-dev"],

If I run this and open http://localhost:3000/package-info I get

Pretty simple!

References

[1]        Is there a way to get version from package.json in nodejs code?

 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9153571/is-there-a-way-to-get-version-from-package-json-in-nodejs-code

                Accessed 5/2015