[feature] sort json keys

[rasa]

What about standardizing our json by sorting the keys? This provides several benefits:

1. Easily find a key... they're sorted!
2. If we change the json programmatically, the diff will just show the change, not a huge diff
3. It will make cut-n-pasting between files easier
4. It will reduce merge conflicts
5. It will reduce mistakes when manually updating a bunch of files
6. It will make diffing two different files easier

Below is a Python script to do this. It would be easy to craft this in Ruby as well.

# jsonfmt.py
from __future__ import print_function

import json
import os
import sys

def touch(filename, mtime):
  with open(filename, 'a+'):
    pass
  os.utime(filename, (mtime, mtime))
  return 0

file = sys.argv[1]
print('Updating', file)

mtime = os.path.getmtime(file)

with open(file, 'r') as f:
  json_data = json.load(f)

new_data = json.dumps(json_data, sort_keys=True, indent=2)
with open(file, 'w') as f:
  f.write(new_data)

touch(file, mtime)

sys.exit(0)

[StefanScherer]

What about packer fix?

packer fix template.json >xx
mv xx template.json

It seems that packer fix also sorts all keys. But you have to write a temporary file. Perhaps there is a more elegant way to do it.

[rasa]

That's another excellent reason to sort our keys. Packer may force us to, some day.