NODE.js fs.readFile and the BOM marker

Working on a ReactJS project, got a small glitch while trying to read a JSON file and parse it as a javascript object. 
 
  getDataObject() {
        var dataString = fs.readFileSync("./json/data.json", "utf8");
        return JSON.parse(dataString);
    }
output:
  SyntaxError: Unexpected token  

After checking, double and triple checking again that the file was correct I went deeper and realized that "fs.readFileSync" was returning me the BOM for the UTF file at the beginning of the string. So we just need to strip it out.
   
   getDataObject() {
        var dataString = fs.readFileSync("./json/data.json", "utf8");
        return JSON.parse(dataString.replace(/^\uFEFF/, ""));
    }
I then checked and there are "packages" for this, however I don't think is proper to just import a new dependency just to fix something this small.

The big issue here is why is this considered correct. The BOM is not part of the string, it's a marker used (and also optional) to aid in how to read the content, but it is not part of the content.

Comments

Rikardo said…
Excellent, it works. Thank you
10/27/19, 2:07 PM
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