Use JSON Schema along with fake generators to provide consistent and meaningful fake data for your system.

We are looking for contributors! If you wanna help us make jsf more awesome, simply write us so!

NEW in JSON Schema Faker: store schemas online!

Table of contents

Basics
Advanced
Misc

Online demo

See online demo. You can save your schemas online and share the link with your collaborators.

Install

jsf is installable through 3 different channels:

npm

Install json-schema-faker with npm:

npm install json-schema-faker --save

bower

Install json-schema-faker with bower:

bower install json-schema-faker --save

cdnjs

JSON-Schema-faker is also available at cdnjs.com. This means you can just include the script file into your HTML:

# remember to update the version number!
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/json-schema-faker/0.3.4/json-schema-faker.min.js"></script>

It will be fetched from the Content Delivery Network without installing any node.js package.

You can see an example JS fiddle based on jsf loaded from cdnjs.

Overview

JSON-Schema-faker (or jsf for short) combines two things:

The JSON-schema specification, that defines what is the allowed content of a JSON document
Fake data generators, that are used to generate basic or complex data, conforming to the schema. Following libraries come bundled with jsf:

Example usage

var jsf = require('json-schema-faker');

var schema = {
  type: 'object',
  properties: {
    user: {
      type: 'object',
      properties: {
        id: {
          $ref: '#/definitions/positiveInt'
        },
        name: {
          type: 'string',
          faker: 'name.findName'
        },
        email: {
          type: 'string',
          format: 'email',
          faker: 'internet.email'
        }
      },
      required: ['id', 'name', 'email']
    }
  },
  required: ['user'],
  definitions: {
    positiveInt: {
      type: 'integer',
      minimum: 0,
      exclusiveMinimum: true
    }
  }
};

var sample = jsf(schema);

console.log(sample);
// "[object Object]"

console.log(sample.user.name);
// "John Doe"

(demo »)

jsf.version attribute is available to check which version you're using:

var jsf = require('json-schema-faker');
console.log(jsf.version);
// "0.3.6"

More examples

json-schema.org/example1.html: warehouse location, Product from Acme catalog
json-schema.org/example2.html: diskDevice storage type, diskUUID storage type, nfs storage type, tmpfs storage type

Gist demos

Clone these gists and execute them locally (each gist has its own readme with instructions):

jsf console - minimal example of jsf working directly under command line
jsf grunt - example of jsf working under grunt.js

Automation

angular-jsf

Use angular-jsf module (installable via npm and bower) to get jsf working in your angular app out of the box! And check out angular-jsf demo.

Grunt plugin

Use grunt-jsonschema-faker to automate running json-schema-faker against your JSON schemas.

CLI

Use json-schema-faker-cli to run jsf from your command line.

Webpack loader

Use json-schema-faker-loader to execute jsf as a webpack loader.

JSON Schema specification support

Currently jsf supports the JSON-Schema specification draft-04 only.

If you want to use draft-03, you may find useful information here.

Supported keywords

Below is the list of supported keywords:

$ref — Resolve internal references only, and/or external if provided.
required — All required properties are guaranteed, if not can be omitted.
pattern — Generate samples based on RegExp values.
format — Core formats only: date-time, email, hostname, ipv4, ipv6 and uri -- demo »
enum — Returns any of these enumerated values.
minLength, maxLength — Applies length constraints to string values.
minimum, maximum — Applies constraints to numeric values.
exclusiveMinimum, exclusiveMaximum — Adds exclusivity for numeric values.
multipleOf — Multiply constraints for numeric values.
items — Support for subschema and fixed item values.
minItems, maxItems — Adds length constraints for array items.
uniqueItems — Applies uniqueness constraints for array items.
additionalItems — Partially supported (?)
allOf, oneOf, anyOf — Subschema combinators.
properties — Object properties to be generated.
minProperties, maxProperties — Adds length constraints for object properties.
patternProperties — RegExp-based object properties.
additionalProperties — Partially supported (?)
dependencies — Not supported yet (?)
not — Not supported yet (?)

Using references

Inline references are fully supported (json-pointers) but external can't be resolved by jsf.

In order to achieve that you can use refaker and then use the resolved schemas:

var schema = {
  type: 'object',
  properties: {
    someValue: {
      $ref: 'otherSchema'
    }
  }
};

var refs = [
  {
    id: 'otherSchema',
    type: 'string'
  }
];

var sample = jsf(schema, refs);

console.log(sample.someValue);
// "voluptatem"

Faking values

jsf has built-in generators for core-formats, Faker.js and Chance.js are also supported.

You can use faker or chance properties but they are optional:

{
  "type": "string",
  "faker": "internet.email"
}

(demo »)

The above schema will invoke faker.internet.email().

Note that both generators has higher precedence than format.

You can also use standard JSON Schema keywords, e.g. pattern:

{
  "type": "string",
  "pattern": "yes|no|maybe|i don't know"
}

(demo »)

Advanced usage of faker.js and Chance.js

In following inline code examples the faker and chance variables are assumed to be created with, respectively:

var faker = require('faker');

var Chance = require('chance'),
  chance = new Chance();

Another example of faking values is passing arguments to the generator:

{
  "type": "string",
  "chance": {
    "email": {
      "domain": "fake.com"
    }
  }
}

(demo »)

which will invoke chance.email({ "domain": "fake.com" }). This example works for single-parameter generator function.

However, if you pass multiple arguments to the generator function, just pass them wrapped in an array. In the example below we use the faker.finance.amount(min, max, dec, symbol) generator which has 4 parameters. We just wrap them with an array and it's equivalent to faker.finance.amount(100, 10000, 2, "$"):

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "cash": {
      "type": "string",
      "faker": {
        "finance.amount": [100, 10000, 2, "$"]
      }
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "cash"
  ]
}

(demo »)

However, if you want to pass a single parameter that is an array itself, e.g. chance.pickone(["banana", "apple", "orange"]), just like described here, then you need to wrap it with an array once more (twice in total). The outer brackets determine that the content is gonna be a list of params injected into the generator. The inner brackets are just the value itself - the array we pass:

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "food": {
      "type": "string",
      "chance": {
        "pickone": [
          [
            "banana",
            "apple",
            "orange"
          ]
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "food"
  ]
}

(demo »)

BREAKING CHANGES

Since 0.3.0 the faker and chance dependencies aren't shipped by default, in order to use both generators you MUST install them with npm install faker chance --save.

Custom formats

Additionally, you can add custom generators for those:

jsf.format('semver', function(gen, schema) {
  return gen.randexp('^\\d\\.\\d\\.\\d{1,2}$');
});

Now that format can be generated:

{
  "type": "string",
  "format": "semver"
}

Usage:

format() — Return all registered formats (custom only)
format(obj) — Register formats by key/value → name/callback
format(name) — Returns that format generator (undefined if not exists)
format(name, callback) — Register a custom format by name/callback

Callback:

gen (object) — Built in generators
- faker (object) — Faker.js instance
- chance (object) — Chance.js instance
- randexp (function) — Randexp generator
schema (object) — The schema for input

Note that custom generators has lower precedence than core ones.

Custom Options

You may define following options for jsf that alter its behavior:

failOnInvalidTypes: boolean - don't throw exception when invalid type passed
defaultInvalidTypeProduct: - default value generated for a schema with invalid type (works only if failOnInvalidTypes is set to false)
maxItems: number - Configure a maximum amount of items to generate in an array. This will override the maximum items found inside a JSON Schema.
maxLength: number - Configure a maximum length to allow generating strings for. This will override the maximum length found inside a JSON Schema.

Set options just as below:

jsf.option({
  failOnInvalidTypes: false
});

Extending dependencies

You may extend Faker.js:

var jsf = require('json-schema-faker');

jsf.extend('faker', function(faker){
  faker.locale = "de"; // or any other language
  faker.custom = {
    statement: function(length) {
      return faker.name.firstName() + " has " + faker.finance.amount() + " on " + faker.finance.account(length) + ".";
    }
  };
  return faker;
});

var schema = {
  "type": "string",
  "faker": {
    "custom.statement": [19]
  }
}

var sample = jsf(schema);

or if you want to use faker's individual localization packages, simply do the following:

jsf.extend('faker', function() {
  // just ignore the passed faker instance
  var faker = require('faker/locale/de');
  // do other stuff
  return faker;
});

You can also extend Chance.js, using built-in chance.mixin function:

var jsf = require('json-schema-faker');

jsf.extend('chance', function(chance){
  chance.mixin({
    'user': function() {
      return {
        first: chance.first(),
        last: chance.last(),
        email: chance.email()
      };
    }
  });

  return chance;
});

var schema = {
  "type": "string",
  "chance": "user"
}

var sample = jsf(schema);

The first parameter of extend function is the generator name (faker or chance). The second one is the function that accepts the dependency library; the function alters the library and returns it.

Inferred Types

JSON Schema does not require you to provide the type property for your JSON Schema documents and document fragments.

But since jsf uses the type property to create the proper fake data, we attempt to infer the type whenever it is not provided. We do this based on the JSON Schema validation properties you use.

Now this means that if you do not use any of the JSON Schema validation properties, jsf will not be able to infer the type for you and you will need to explicitly set your type manually.)

Below is the list of JSON Schema validation properties and the inferred type based on the property:

array

additionalItems
items
maxItems
minItems
uniqueItems

integer (Number uses the same properties so if you need number, set your type explicitly)

exclusiveMaximum
exclusiveMinimum
maximum
minimum
multipleOf

object

additionalProperties
dependencies
maxProperties
minProperties
patternProperties
properties
required

string

maxLength
minLength
pattern

Swagger extensions

jsf supports OpenAPI Specification vendor extensions, i.e.

x-faker property that stands for faker property (demo »)
x-chance property that stands for chance property (demo »)

Thanks to it, you can use valid swagger definitions for jsf data generation.

Bundling

JSON-Schema-faker might be used in Node.js as well as in the browser. In order to execute jsf in a browser, you should include the distribution file from dist directory. Each new version of jsf is bundled using browserify and stored by the library maintainers. The bundle includes full versions of all dependencies.

However, you may want to bundle a smaller package of jsf, because:

you want to reduce the bundle file size
you don't need all languages from faker.js
you wish to use chance.js only and get rid of other dependencies
or for any other reason... In that case you may bundle the distribution yourself manually. It's easily achievable: just modify the lib/util/container.js file and either remove o rmodify the require calls (they're directly used by browserify to include dependencies). Automation of this feature is expected in near future.

Contribution

Alvaro Cabrera
Tomasz Ducin
artwork by Ajay Karat

We are more than happy to welcome new contributors, our project is heavily developed, but we need more power :) Please see contribution guide, you can always contact us to ask how you can help.

Technical Documentation

If you want to contribute, take a look at the technical documentation page. You may find some important information there making it easier to start.

Moreover, if you find something unclear (e.g. how does something work) or would like to suggest improving the docs, please submit an issue, we'll gladly provide more info for future contributors.

Resources

JSON, JSON Schema & JSON-schema-faker - WarsawJS meetup presentation recording, a step-by-step guide to JSON-related tools, including jsf

Motivation

There were some existing projects or services trying to achieve similar goals as jsf:

but they were either incomplete, outdated, broken or non-standard. That's why jsf was created.

License

peterwald/json-schema-faker

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