Can faker be used to create fake JSON data

Question

I was wondering if there is a way to set up a fake data (information) such as a name and email and have it stored in a JSON file.

I known faker can be used with node and NPM to create fake data in JS but what about with JSON?

Answer 1

One more example generates ten users and writes them to a data.json file.

employees.js

let faker = require('faker');
let fs = require('fs');

function generateEmployees() {
  let employees = [];
  for (let id = 1; id <= 10; id++) {
    let firstName = faker.name.firstName();
    let lastName = faker.name.lastName();
    let email = faker.internet.email();
    employees.push({
      id: id,
      first_name: firstName,
      last_name: lastName,
      email: email,
    });
  }
  return { employees: employees };
}
module.exports = generateEmployees;

let dataObj = generateEmployees();
fs.writeFileSync('data.json', JSON.stringify(dataObj, null, '\t'));

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Serving fake data with JSON Server

$ json-server employees.js

Now you can click on the Resources link to see the result.

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Update

Inspired by @le_m, you can generate dummy data without using a for loop:

let faker = require('faker');
let fs = require('fs');

const generateEmployee = () => {
  return {
    id: faker.random.uuid(),
    first_name: faker.name.firstName(),
    last_name: faker.name.lastName(),
    email: faker.internet.email(),
  };
};

const generateEmployees = (numUsers) => {
  return Array.from({ length: numUsers }, generateEmployee);
};

let dataObj = generateEmployees(10);
fs.writeFileSync('data.json', JSON.stringify(dataObj, null, '\t'));

Then, simply start your server using the following command:

$ node employees.js

Answer 2

var faker = require('faker');
var fs = require('fs');

var data = {};

data.name = faker.name.findName();
data.email = faker.internet.email();

fs.writeFile('data.json', JSON.stringify(data), (err) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('It\'s saved!');
});