diff --git a/JFile.cpp b/JFile.cpp
index ed64f43..69c171a 100644
--- a/JFile.cpp
+++ b/JFile.cpp
@@ -15,8 +15,22 @@ namespace coreutils {
    // at offset 0 with no braces or separators at all). Detect that case
    // here and seed valid JSON explicitly.
    JFile::JFile(ZString filename) : MFile(filename) {
-      if(getLength() == 0)
+      if(getLength() == 0) {
 	*this << "{}";
+      } else {
+	 // MFile's own file-loading reads the raw bytes straight into the
+	 // shared MString buffer - it never goes through JString::operator=,
+	 // which is the only other place this class normally strips
+	 // whitespace before parsing (removeWhitespace()). Without this, a
+	 // JFile backed by a hand-written or pretty-printed JSON file (any
+	 // whitespace between tokens - indentation, newlines, spaces after
+	 // ':'/',') fails every locate()/exists()/get*() call, since
+	 // JString's parser expects compact JSON with no whitespace at all
+	 // between structural tokens. In-memory JSON built via operator=
+	 // never hit this because it already goes through the same
+	 // normalization - loading from disk just missed it.
+	 removeWhitespace();
+      }
    }
       
    
diff --git a/JString.h b/JString.h
index 62847a0..f1ba16c 100644
--- a/JString.h
+++ b/JString.h
@@ -193,9 +193,22 @@ namespace coreutils {
 
       virtual void changed(ZString key, ZString value);
 
-    private:
+    protected:
+
+      ///
+      /// Strips whitespace between JSON structural tokens (indentation,
+      /// newlines, spaces after ':'/',') - the parser expects compact JSON
+      /// internally. operator=(ZString) already calls this for in-memory
+      /// assignment; JFile's constructor also calls it after loading a
+      /// file's raw bytes, which otherwise bypasses this entirely (see
+      /// JFile.cpp). Protected rather than private specifically so JFile
+      /// can reach it.
+      ///
+
       void removeWhitespace();
 
+    private:
+
       ///
       /// Structural helpers used internally by locate()/set() to correctly skip
       /// past a value of any JSON type without being confused by JSON-structural
diff --git a/testing/jfile_test b/testing/jfile_test
index 3271a2a..00cfdd2 100755
Binary files a/testing/jfile_test and b/testing/jfile_test differ
diff --git a/testing/jstring_test b/testing/jstring_test
index 689ee78..2c72bd3 100755
Binary files a/testing/jstring_test and b/testing/jstring_test differ
diff --git a/testing/mfile_test b/testing/mfile_test
index dc7ae5c..dee58c9 100755
Binary files a/testing/mfile_test and b/testing/mfile_test differ