Cannot parse the config file

[MFry]

I am running jsdoc on windows 7

$ jsdoc -v
JSDoc 3.4.3 (Thu, 10 Nov 2016 00:25:10 GMT)

and trying to run the documentations config file leads, which leads to the following:

$ jsdoc -c jsdocs.config
Cannot parse the config file jsdocs.config: SyntaxError: Unexpected token  in JSON at position 0
Exiting JSDoc because an error occurred. See the previous log messages for details.

The config file is the one used as an example on the site:
https://github.com/jsdoc3/jsdoc/blob/master/conf.json.EXAMPLE

[hegemonic]

I strongly suspect that you're saving the config file as UTF-8 with a BOM at the beginning. Try saving it in a different text encoding, or without the BOM.

[MFry]

Thanks for pointing me to the problem @hegemonic . Here is a quick writeup/solution to the problem.

Explanation:
Windows tends to encode using utf-8 with BOM and you can check/modify the encoding with notepad or notepad++.

Solution:
Change to utf-8 without BOM for jsdoc. Take care with software such as visual studios which will change the format back by default when you hit save.

The issue is related to:
Reference
github.com/nodejs/1918
#1256

[johnfercher]

@MFry , how can I convert to utf-8 without BOM in Linux 16.04?

[hegemonic]

FYI, this is now fixed on master. The fix will be included in JSDoc 3.5.0.