A better way for handle json in templates

[egoist]

A json file will become a mess when there're too many conditions like:

"devDependencies": {<% if (unitTest) { %>
    "jest-cli": "^19.0.0"<% } %><% if (eslint === 'xo') { %><% if (unitTest) { %>,<% } %>
    "eslint-config-rem": "^3.0.0",
    "xo": "^0.18.0"<% } else if (eslint === 'standard') { %>,
    "standard": "^10.0.0"<% } %><% if (compile) { %><% if (eslint !== 'disable' || unitTest) { %>,<% } %>
    <%_ if (unitTest) { -%>
    "babel-preset-env": "^1.4.0",
    <%_ } -%>
    <%_ if (poi) { -%>
    "poi": "^9.1.4",
    <%_ } -%>
    "bili": "^1.3.1"<% } %>
  }<% if (eslint === 'xo') { %>,

Maybe we can use a special extension .json.js to generate json file, e.g. template/package.json.js that will be treat as template/package.json:

module.exports = ({ name, coverage }) => {
  const json = {
    name,
    version: '0.0.0',
    scripts: {}
  }

  if (coverage) {
    json.scripts.coverage = 'jest --coverage'
  }

  return json
}

[egoist]

I guess it could also support other markup languages like yaml toml etc...

{
  transformers: {
  	'**/*.json.js'(file, stream) {
  		stream.writeContents(file.path.replace(/\.js$/, ''), transform(file.content))
  		delete stream.files[file.path]
  	}
  } 
}

[kristianmandrup]

Instead of using templates with json try using json/object transformer libs. Check npmjs ;)

Here one example: object-transform-stream

Many others out there for sure, but perhaps could be done via a general purpose merge template:

{
  type: 'json',
  base {
    // baseline object
  }, 
  parts: {
    author({author}) => author,
    repo({username, name}) {
       return {
         url: `...github/${username}${name}/...`
       }
    },
   // ...
  }
}

Then merge the result of each generated parts entry onto the base object then convert the end result to type. Not sure if this is much better or cleaner, but at least a novel approach.

[kristianmandrup]

Just implemented this idea using vm2 and it rocks!!