In Symfony2, is there a way to pretty-print JSON responses? - json

Question

I am writing a REST API in Symfony2, and I have my controller outputting JSON responses using the provided JsonResponse class:
$response = new JsonResponse(null, $status);
$response->setData($node['Content']);
return $response;
However, for debugging purposes, it would be nice to be able to pretty print the output. Is there an argument I can pass to the JsonResponse object to enable pretty-printing of the output?

Answer 1

Creating an event listener for that, as in Pawel's answer is overengineering.
To prettify, you just pass in the JSON_PRETTY_PRINT constant to the JsonResponse via the setEncodingOptions, like in this example:
$response = new JsonResponse( [ 'your' => 'data' ] );
$response->setEncodingOptions( $response->getEncodingOptions() | JSON_PRETTY_PRINT );
return $response;
You can see the Symfony API for more information:
Class JsonResponse:
http://api.symfony.com/3.2/Symfony/Component/HttpFoundation/JsonResponse.html
Method setEncodingOptions:
http://api.symfony.com/3.2/Symfony/Component/HttpFoundation/JsonResponse.html#method_setEncodingOptions
This is documentation for v3.2... but older versions like for example v2.7 also have this method.

Answer 2

You can create EventListener for that. Here is mine
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Event\FilterResponseEvent;
use Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\HttpKernelInterface;
/**
* Preetify json response.
*/
class FormatJsonResponseListener
{
public function onResponse(FilterResponseEvent $event)
{
if (HttpKernelInterface::MASTER_REQUEST !== $event->getRequestType()) {
return;
}
$request = $event->getRequest();
if (APPLICATION_ENV === 'development' || APPLICATION_ENV === 'dev' || $request->query->get('pretty_json', false) == true) {
$response = $event->getResponse();
$responseData = $event->getResponse()->getContent();
$response->setContent(Json::indent($responseData));
$event->setResponse($response);
}
}
}
And register that service with:
#services.ym
services:
your.service.listener.format_json:
class: Your\Vendor\FormatJsonResponseListener
tags:
- { name: kernel.event_listener, event: kernel.response, method: onResponse }
My JSON class is here: https://github.com/sourcefabric/Newscoop/blob/master/newscoop/library/Newscoop/Gimme/Json.php
Instead APPLICATION_ENV you can pass to listener parameter kernel.debug.
You can also modify response with (PHP >= 5.4.0, HttpFoundation >= 2.5)
$response->setEncodingOptions($response->getEncodingOptions() | JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);