How can I get javascript to read from a .json file?

My script currently looks like this:

<script type="text/javascript">
  function updateMe(){
    var x = 0;
    var jsonstr = '{"date":"July 4th", "event":"Independence Day"}';
    var activity=JSON.parse(jsonstr);
    while(x<10){
    date = document.getElementById("date"+x).innerHTML = activity.date;
    event = document.getElementById("event"+x).innerHTML = activity.event;
    x++;
    }
  }
</script>

Where date"x" and event"x" are a series of html tags. This function runs when the page loads (onload). My goal is to do this exact same thing, only from a local .json file as opposed to the hard code that I've got above. I've already checked out http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.getJSON/.

The local .json file looks like this:

{"date":"July 4th", "event":"Independence Day"}

Any suggestions?

Assuming you mean "file on a local filesystem" when you say .json file.

You'll need to save the json data formatted as jsonp, and use a file:// url to access it.

Your HTML will look like this:

<script src="file://c:\\data\\activity.jsonp"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  function updateMe(){
    var x = 0;
    var activity=jsonstr;
    foreach (i in activity) {
        date = document.getElementById(i.date).innerHTML = activity.date;
        event = document.getElementById(i.event).innerHTML = activity.event;
    }
  }
</script>

And the file c:\data\activity.jsonp contains the following line:

jsonstr = [ {"date":"July 4th", "event":"Independence Day"} ];

NOTICE: AS OF JULY 12TH, 2018, THE OTHER ANSWERS ARE ALL OUTDATED. JSONP IS NOW CONSIDERED A TERRIBLE IDEA

If you have your JSON as a string, JSON.parse() will work fine. Since you are loading the json from a file, you will need to do a XMLHttpRequest to it. For example (This is w3schools.com example):

var xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {
        var myObj = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
        document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = myObj.name;
    }
};
xmlhttp.open("GET", "json_demo.txt", true);
xmlhttp.send();

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<h2>Use the XMLHttpRequest to get the content of a file.</h2>
<p>The content is written in JSON format, and can easily be converted into a JavaScript object.</p>

<p id="demo"></p>


<p>Take a look at <a href="json_demo.txt" target="_blank">json_demo.txt</a></p>

</body>
</html>

It will not work here as that file isn't located here. Go to this w3schools example though: https://www.w3schools.com/js/tryit.asp?filename=tryjson_ajax

Here is the documentation for JSON.parse(): https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/JSON/parse

Here's a summary:

The JSON.parse() method parses a JSON string, constructing the JavaScript value or object described by the string. An optional reviver function can be provided to perform a transformation on the resulting object before it is returned.

Here's the example used:

var json = '{"result":true, "count":42}';
obj = JSON.parse(json);

console.log(obj.count);
// expected output: 42

console.log(obj.result);
// expected output: true

Here is a summary on XMLHttpRequests from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/XMLHttpRequest:

Use XMLHttpRequest (XHR) objects to interact with servers. You can retrieve data from a URL without having to do a full page refresh. This enables a Web page to update just part of a page without disrupting what the user is doing. XMLHttpRequest is used heavily in Ajax programming.

If you don't want to use XMLHttpRequests, then a JQUERY way (which I'm not sure why it isn't working for you) is http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.getJSON/

Since it isn't working, I'd try using XMLHttpRequests

You could also try AJAX requests:

$.ajax({
    'async': false,
    'global': false,
    'url': "/jsonfile.json",
    'dataType': "json",
    'success': function (data) {
        // do stuff with data
    }
});

Documentation: http://api.jquery.com/jquery.ajax/

You can do it like... Just give the proper path of your json file...

<!doctype html>
<html>
    <head>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="abc.json"></script>
             <script type="text/javascript" >
                function load() {
                     var mydata = JSON.parse(data);
                     alert(mydata.length);

                     var div = document.getElementById('data');

                     for(var i = 0;i < mydata.length; i++)
                     {
                        div.innerHTML = div.innerHTML + "<p class='inner' id="+i+">"+ mydata[i].name +"</p>" + "<br>";
                     }
                 }
        </script>
    </head>
    <body onload="load()">
    <div id= "data">

    </div>
    </body>
</html>

Simply getting the data and appending it to a div... Initially printing the length in alert.

Here is my Json file: abc.json

data = '[{"name" : "Riyaz"},{"name" : "Javed"},{"name" : "Arun"},{"name" : "Sunil"},{"name" : "Rahul"},{"name" : "Anita"}]';

Actually, you are looking for the AJAX CALL, in which you will replace the URL parameter value with the link of the JSON file to get the JSON values.

$.ajax({
    url: "File.json", //the path of the file is replaced by File.json
    dataType: "json",
    success: function (response) {
        console.log(response); //it will return the json array
    }
});

How can I get javascript to read from a .json file?

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