How to pretty json output from curl?

Question

I am trying to do this:

curl localhost:3000/api/items/15/tools

This is the return right now:

{"recipe_tools":[{"id":19,"name":"Cutting Board","prices":{"display":"49ドル.99","value":"49.99"},"description":"Built to last,
... (and then like a million lines)

And it keeps going...

How do I pretty print or awesome print this? What can I do?

• Sobrique: Within curl? You can't; it doesn't. There are plenty of tools you could pipe some JSON into and format it though. As such, I would suggest this is actually a software recommendation request.
• durbnpoisn: You learn how to parse the object that is returned.
• Da-FyK: Possible duplicate of How can I pretty-print JSON from the command line? (from a file)
• Mojtaba: What's your scripting language?
• ggorlen: Does this answer your question? How can I pretty-print JSON in a shell script?

Answer 1

There are things you can install, but the simplest way is to use Python as it's typically already installed.

curl localhost:3000/api/items/15/tools | python -m json.tool

Answer 2

I use jq to pretty-print it.

jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor.

jq is written in portable C, and it has zero runtime dependencies.

E.g.

Without JSON formatter

$ curl -s http://localhost:3000; echo
{"account":{"id":"HXRC","uri":["mailto:[email protected]","tel:[phone]"],"features":["585"],"nickname":"Consultant"}}

Install jq(Ubuntu):

$ sudo apt-get install jq

Use jq json formatter.

$ curl -s http://localhost:3000 | jq '.'
{
 "account": {
 "id": "HXRC",
 "uri": [
 "mailto:[email protected]",
 "tel:[phone]"
 ],
 "features": [
 "585"
 ],
 "nickname": "Consultant"
 }
}

You can find more examples in tutorial. You can find the installation for each OS in download page

• Evan R: jq is also available through Homebrew, so brew install jq

Answer 3

Port 3000 makes me think you are using Rails.

I have used JSON.pretty_generate(json_obj) on my RoR applications to have a JSON object return properly indented.

Answer 4

On macOS, use json_pp

Example:

curl your_request_url | json_pp