matter-json

Canonical URL: https://alexstevovich.com/a/matter-json-nodejs

Software URL: https://midnightcitylights.com/software/matter-json-nodejs

A Node.js package for parsing, serializing, and validating JSON front matter in text documents. This is useful for processing files like markdown documents that include metadata in the front matter.

Installation

npm install matter-json

Example

import { parse, serialize, validate } from 'matter-json';

// Example content with front matter
const text = `---
{
  "title": "My Document",
  "author": "John Smith"
}
---
This is the content of the document.`;

// Parse front matter and content
const { data, content } = parse(text);
console.log(data); // { title: "My Document", author: "John Smith" }
console.log(content); // "This is the content of the document."

// Serialize data and content back into front matter format
const serializedText = serialize(data, content);
console.log(serializedText);

// Validate the front matter format
const isValid = validate(text);
console.log(isValid); // true or false

API

parse(text)

Parses JSON front matter from a string and returns an object containing the parsed data and the content.

| Parameter | Type | Description | | --------- | ------ | -------------------------------------------------- | | text | string | The full text containing front matter and content. |

Returns: { data: object, content: string }

Throws an error if the input is not a string or if the front matter format is invalid.

serialize(data, content, [indentation = 2])

Serializes the data and content into a front matter formatted string.

| Parameter | Type | Description | | ----------- | ------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | | data | object | The front matter JSON data. | | content | string | The document content. | | indentation | number | (Optional) The number of spaces for JSON indentation (default is 2). |

Returns: string - The formatted front matter and content.

Throws an error if data is not an object or content is not a string.

validate(text)

Validates whether the given text contains properly formatted JSON front matter.

| Parameter | Type | Description | | --------- | ------ | --------------------- | | text | string | The text to validate. |

Returns: boolean - true if the front matter is valid, false otherwise.

Notes

• This package is useful for processing text files with metadata in the front matter, often seen in markdown or YAML-based formats.
• Minimal and dependency-free.
• Can be used for various text processing, including document generation and static site generation.

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.