JSON modules

[MylesBorins]

Hey All,

I'd like to explore support for importing json, similar to how Node.js currently support require('./some.json')

Expected behavior:

imported json would export an object or array with the content from the provided json file.

Why:

Currently the was to get JSON is via fetch + import.meta.url... and requires a bit of back and forth... the eventual result is a promise to resolve to the json object. Being able to statically import and parse json would allow us to import specific symbols, export symbols, and asynchronously get resources during the fetch phase.

What are the next steps?:

I'm assuming a spec change in the HTML spec, but unsure what else we would need to do. Thoughts?

[domenic]

So concretely, for those not familiar with Node.js's support here, this would mean that if you import something with a JSON mime type, you would get back the result as if JSON.parse were applied to the files contents (decoded as UTF-8). If it doesn't parse as JSON, then the module ends up in the error state, similar to JavaScript parse errors.

As for next steps, the main one is implementer interest. /cc @whatwg/modules; does this seem like a reasonable addition?

[bmeck]

I think it is reasonable, but would note that this is for static data, whereas fetch() would get new data each time it is used; import() will not get new modules for each use. As long as this is well understood it seems good for a variety of usages that we see in bundler usages.

[tabatkins]

I'm happy with certain well-known and commonly-used content-types getting good module support, even if it's just a "trivial" wrapper around a constructor or function call. JSON, CSS, etc are all good.

[annevk]

This came up at the last W3C TPAC too, I raised WICG/webcomponents#770 at the time. If the complexity is indeed branching on a JSON MIME type and then using parse JSON from bytes I think Mozilla would be supportive. If we also want to advertise support to servers in some manner the discussion might become a little more involved. (It seems apart from an object or array this could also return a primitive, by the way.)

[thw0rted]

I don't know if it matters to the standards process, but there is some discussion of the topic already. If you look at the answers on that SO question (and at linked/related questions), you'll see there is some confusion as well. Because many (most?) people writing in ES6 or later end up transpiling via Babel -- which means using a module loader provided by the transpiler, rather than the browser-native one -- they can write import { x } from "foo.json" today, and as far as they are concerned, it works. Presumably this is because the Babel runtime loader is actually more advanced than the browser native implementation.

[bmeck]

There are some complexities if we are wishing to exactly match tooling as it exists today.

To note, tools supporting JSON as an importable module type do allow both named and default exports. The JSON provided always assigns the result value to the default and then "picks" the relevant Object properties to expose as named exports e.g.

{"x": {}}

~=

export default {x: {}}
// export x = default.x //

This kind of aliasing where updating default.x updates x isn't available to Source Text Module Records, but that is probably fine.

Additionally, for non-Identifier properties, the only way to access values would be through the default export due to being unable to import non-Identifier bindings.

import locales from './locales.json';
locales[navigator.language];

I think the simplest solution of not supporting named exports would be fine for now and encourage a more uniform usage.

[ljharb]

Conceptually a json file is a single thing; that babel allows named imports from it is merely a product of it conflating destructuring with named imports. I definitely agree json should be confined to default import.

[MylesBorins]

What are the next steps for getting this off the ground? Spec Text? Implementor interest?

I'm happy to help drive this but need some mentorship on the process

[domenic]

Implementer interest would be ideal, otherwise spec text might be wasted effort. But, you could start spec and test work ahead of implementer interest, if you're OK taking the risk.

I'm happy to mentor on spec/test work when you're ready; let's discuss in a more high-bandwidth medium like IRC or offline.

[MylesBorins]

I will be at tc39 next week and can work on getting some implementer interest.