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How can I compare two minified json files in beyond compare? Is there a built in file format for json? I'm looking to compare two pretty print representations of the underlying json objects.

jxramos
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2 Answers2

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In this thread a representative says:

While not in the box yet, we do have a JSON sorted format available for download in our Additional File Formats section:

With a link to Scooter Software Downloads

Tim Sylvester
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  • This didn't work for me. The other answer is better. – Jonas Sourlier Jun 17 '22 at 13:40
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    there are 3 additional files. JSON, JSON tidied and JSON sorted. for me JSON tidied works best for most case. but that depends on what your comparing. I did install all 3. – e-Fungus Jun 24 '22 at 10:05
  • It only works for me if I use the "Open File" dialog. Pasting JSON content in the left or right pane doesn't reformat it. – Aurélien Gasser Sep 28 '22 at 15:02
  • @AurélienGasser When pasting text, it doesn't know it's JSON and you'll have to pick "JSON Tidied" from the Format menu. Unfortunately, the conversion is implemented with files instead of pipes, so it'll ask you to save to files. Another option is `pbpaste | jq . | pbcopy` to tidy JSON in the clipboard, but you'll have to acquire those utilities on Windows. – Tim Sylvester Sep 28 '22 at 15:15
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    Cheers this was super helpful to me. I set the tab stops to 1 and it made my JSON much more manageable – P6345uk Nov 10 '22 at 10:04
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You can achieve this specialized diff functionality by defining a new file format conversion rule in beyond compare. This example was conducted in the Windows OS.

Step 0: Create a python conversion script to render the formatted json. Save the following python script somewhere on your harddrive

import json
import sys

sourceFile = sys.argv[1]
targetFile = sys.argv[2]

with open(sourceFile, 'r') as file_r:
    # Load json data
    data = json.load(file_r)

    # Write formatted json data
    with open(targetFile, 'w') as file_w:
        json.dump(data, file_w, indent=4)

Step 1: Navigate in the BeyondCompare menu to: Tools-->File Formats...

Step 2: Create new file format entry by clicking on the + button and select Text Format New text file format

Step 3: Enter *.json into the file format's Mask field, and any description that will help you recall the file format's purpose. Define new file format

Step 4: Define the file format's conversion settings. Select the Conversion tab and select External program (unicode filenames) from the pull down. In the Loading field write the following shell command

python C:\Source\jsonPrettyPrint.py "%s" "%t"

Conversion settings for file format

Step 5: Press the Save button and optionally rename the file format by right clicking it in the File Formats Name and Mask table.

Further specializations of the json dumping could be considered by looking at the python documentation, eg sort_keys=True

jxramos
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    This is great, but it is even better if you add `, sort_keys=True` to the `json.dump` call (that is `json.dump(data, file_w, indent=4, sort_keys=True)`). This way, you won't get differences because of the JSON object key order, which is arbitrary. – Jonas Sourlier Jun 17 '22 at 13:34