json2gsheet

Serializes JSON data to Google Sheets, and vice versa.

Installation

npm install json2gsheet

Concept

json2gsheet pushes JSON keys to a column, and values to another column, and more values for the same key to subsequent columns.

json2gsheet uses a token, which is called an id in this context, to relate the JSON file and the sheet column where values are pushed to.

For example, given these JSON files, with id as the file name without the .json suffix:

// person1.json
{
  "name": "John",
  "likes": "puppy"
}

// person2.json
{
  "name": "Jane",
  "likes": "cat"
}

// person3.json
{
  "name": "Russell",
  "likes": "bear"
}

When pushed to the sheet, this is the result:

 Key  | person1 | person2 | person3
-----------------------------------
name  | John    | Jane    | Russell
likes | puppy   | cat     | bear

For nested JSON object, it is first flattened when pushed to the sheet. For example:

// someCol.json
{
  "parent": {
    "child": "some value",

    "childtwo": {
      "grandchild": "more value"
    }
  }
}

becomes:

           Key             |  someCol
---------------------------------------
parent.child               | some value
parent.childtwo.grandchild | more value

When pulled from the sheet, it is de-flattened to restore the initial nested structure.

Scope

json2gsheet only works with JSON strings, objects, and arrays.

Usage

Preparation

In a working directory, prepare these files:

• json2gsheet.config.json

  Configuration file for this application.

• client_secret.json

  Google API credential in JSON format.

To get your client_secret.json:

1. On a Google Cloud Platform project, enable Google Sheets API.
2. Create a service account, note its email address.
3. Download the JSON credential file and name it as client_secret.json.

On your sheet, grant Editor access to the service account, via its email address.

Pushing JSON to sheet

json2gsheet push <id>

What it does:

1. Read the JSON file identified by id
2. Flatten it to have a single level key-value pairs
3. Push the list of keys and values to their respective sheet column as specified in the configuration file

Pulling from sheet to JSON

json2gsheet pull <id>

What it does:

1. Pull data from the sheet
2. De-flatten the data
3. Write the JSON to a file identified by id

Basically the opposite of push subcommand.

Configuration

json2gsheet is heavily driven by configurations. You can find a copy of sample configuration in this repository.

App configurations

• app.jsonFileName

  The file name template for the JSON file. This is where the position of id token is specified, using the placeholder $id.

• app.command.pull.skipEmptyValue

  For pull subcommand only. If set to true, when a cell is empty, the key-value pair represented by this cell will not be inserted in the resulting JSON object.

Sheets configurations

• sheets.spreadsheetId

  The Google Sheets ID.

• sheets.sheetName

  The name of the sheet to read from or write to. Note, this is not the spreadsheet’s file name, but the name of an individual sheet in the spreadsheet file.

• sheets.keyColumn

  The column to push JSON keys to. It is an object containing:

  • label for column header label
  • column to push to
  • cellStart on which cell to start writing from

• sheets.valueColumns

  The columns to push JSON values to.

  This is an array of valueColumn. Each object contains:

  • id to identify the JSON file
  • label for column header label
  • column to push to
  • cellStart on which cell to start writing from

Development

Run the tests:

npm test

To prepare for a new version:

1. Create a new branch.
2. Update version on package.json and package-lock.json.
3. Make a commit.
4. Merge the branch.
5. Create an annotated tag.
6. Push the tag.

To publish the new version:

npm pack
npm publish

License

MIT