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How to Load Data from a File in Next.js

Static json files can be used to store data that does not change regularly, and is used by multiple pages. These files can be stored in your applications public folder, and loaded directly with a GET request. This approach can have security concerns however. A possible solution is to:

  • Store your json files in a private folder inside your application
  • Construct an API endpoint to load these files using the file system
  • Connect to the API endpoint in your front-end and display the data

Prerequisites

Before getting started, you should be able to:

Set up the json data

Given a basic Next.js project created with npx create-next-app@latest or a new template on Vercel, let's create a folder called json at the root of the project, and inside it, create a file called data.json.

Begin by pasting the following content into the data.json file:

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{
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  "record": {
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    "id": 8221,
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    "uid": "a15c1f1d-9e4e-4dc7-9c45-c04412fc5064",
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    "name": "Next.js",
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    "language": "JavaScript"
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  }
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}

Add the API route

Next add a file called staticdata.js inside the pages/api folder. This will create a Serverless Function that will load the json data from the file, and return it as a response.

Now paste the following code in the staticdata.js file:

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import path from 'path';
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import { promises as fs } from 'fs';
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export default async function handler(req, res) {
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  //Find the absolute path of the json directory
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  const jsonDirectory = path.join(process.cwd(), 'json');
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  //Read the json data file data.json
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  const fileContents = await fs.readFile(jsonDirectory + '/data.json', 'utf8');
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  //Return the content of the data file in json format
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  res.status(200).json(fileContents);
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}
Code reading the `/json/data.json` file and returning it's contents

Display the data using SWR

Inside the index.js file, located in the pages folder, replace the content with the following code:

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//useSWR allows the use of SWR inside function components
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import useSWR from 'swr';
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//Write a fetcher function to wrap the native fetch function and return the result of a call to url in json format
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const fetcher = (url) => fetch(url).then((res) => res.json());
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export default function Index() {
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  //Set up SWR to run the fetcher function when calling "/api/staticdata"
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  //There are 3 possible states: (1) loading when data is null (2) ready when the data is returned (3) error when there was an error fetching the data
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  const { data, error } = useSWR('/api/staticdata', fetcher);
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  //Handle the error state
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  if (error) return <div>Failed to load</div>;
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  //Handle the loading state
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  if (!data) return <div>Loading...</div>;
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  //Handle the ready state and display the result contained in the data object mapped to the structure of the json file
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  return (
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    <div>
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      <h1>My Framework from file</h1>
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      <ul>
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        <li>Name: {data.record.name}</li>
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        <li>Language: {data.record.language}</li>
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      </ul>
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    </div>
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  );
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}
This code uses SWR to make a request to the API route /api/staticdata and display some of the content in the browser.
  • Make sure you installed swr in your project using yarn add swr or npm install swr
  • Run your application locally using npm run dev

When you browse to localhost:3000, you should see the same content as on this page. You can now deploy your application to Vercel to produce the same results.

That's it!

As reference:

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