Earlier today, I found the need to generate and make use of a large JSON dataset for populating a list within a mobile app experience. I needed thousands of records to test and all of the sample JSON files I could find were pretty small, simple things. I reached out on Twitter and recieved a few responses, including a rather neat Node-based solution from Ray Camden.
However, after a little more research, I stumbled across a really convenient web-based project called JSON Generator which took care of all my needs quite handily!
Not only did this produce a rich set of data for my use, but you can actually tailor the generator template to your liking through the use of certain bindings accessible via the help menu. Even more importantly, you can bump up the amount of records generated by editing the template as well. I took it from the default 5-7 range to return between 1000-5000 records simply by modifying the following line:
'{{repeat(1000, 5000)}}',
Now I have a rich set of data for use in mobile AIR, PhoneGap, whatever I wish!
Using the native JSON methods in ActionScript 3 to load in and parse the data locally, I was able to easily inject this large dataset into my Feathers list component in testing. For fun, I recorded a short video to demonstrate the performance:
Awesome!