Display curl output in readable JSON format in Unix shell script - json

Question

In my Unix shell script, when I execute a curl command, the result will be displayed as below which I am redirecting to file:
{"type":"Show","id":"123","title":"name","description":"Funny","channelTitle":"ifood.tv","lastUpdateTimestamp":"2014-04-20T20:34:59","numOfVideos":"15"}
But, I want this output to put in the readable JSON format like below in the file:
{"type":"Show",
"id":"123",
"title":"name",
"description":"Funny",
"channelTitle":"ifood.tv",
"lastUpdateTimestamp":"2014-04-20T20:34:59",
"numOfVideos":"15"}
How do I format the output this way?

Answer 1

A few solutions to choose from:
json json is a fast CLI tool for working with JSON. It is a single-file node.js script with no external deps (other than node.js itself).
$ echo '{"type":"Bar","id":"1","title":"Foo"}' | json
{
"type": "Bar",
"id": "1",
"title": "Foo"
}
Require:
# npm install -g json
json_pp: command utility available in Linux systems for JSON decoding/encoding
echo '{"type":"Bar","id":"1","title":"Foo"}' | json_pp -json_opt pretty,canonical
{
"id" : "1",
"title" : "Foo",
"type" : "Bar"
}
You may want to keep the -json_opt pretty,canonical argument for predictable ordering.
jq: lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor. It is written in portable C, and it has zero runtime dependencies.
echo '{"type":"Bar","id":"1","title":"Foo"}' | jq '.'
{
"type": "Bar",
"id": "1",
"title": "Foo"
}
The simplest jq program is the expression ., which takes the input and produces it unchanged as output.
For additional jq options check the manual
python yq yq: Command-line YAML/XML/TOML processor - jq wrapper for YAML, XML, TOML documents
$ echo '{"type":"Bar","id":"1","title":"Foo"}' | yq
{
"type": "Bar",
"id": "1",
"title": "Foo"
}
The go version go yq doesn't work here
With xidel Command line tool to download and extract data from HTML/XML pages or JSON-APIs, using CSS, XPath 3.0, XQuery 3.0, JSONiq or pattern matching. It can also create new or transformed XML/HTML/JSON documents.
$ echo '{"type":"Bar","id":"1","title":"Foo"}' | xidel -e '$json'
{
"type": "Bar",
"id": "1",
"title": "Foo"
}
with python:
echo '{"type":"Bar","id":"1","title":"Foo"}' | python -m json.tool
{
"id": "1",
"title": "Foo",
"type": "Bar"
}
with nodejs and bash:
echo '{"type":"Bar","id":"1","title":"Foo"}' | node -e "console.log( JSON.stringify( JSON.parse(require('fs').readFileSync(0) ), 0, 1 ))"
{
"type": "Bar",
"id": "1",
"title": "Foo"
}

Answer 2

I am guessing that you want to prettify the JSON output.
That could be achieved using python:
curl http://localhost:8880/test.json | python -mjson.tool > out.json

Answer 3

This is to add to of Gilles' Answer. There are many ways to get this done but personally I prefer something lightweight, easy to remember and universally available (e.g. come with standard LTS installations of your preferred Linux flavor or easy to install) on common *nix systems.
Here are the options in their preferred order:
Python Json.tool module
echo '{"foo": "lorem", "bar": "ipsum"}' | python -mjson.tool
pros: almost available everywhere; cons: no color coding
jq (may require one time installation)
echo '{"foo": "lorem", "bar": "ipsum"}' | jq
cons: needs to install jq; pros: color coding and versatile
json_pp (available in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS)
echo '{"foo": "lorem", "bar": "ipsum"}' | json_pp
For Ruby users
gem install jsonpretty
echo '{"foo": "lorem", "bar": "ipsum"}' | jsonpretty

Answer 4

You can use the json node module:
npm i -g json
then simply append | json after curl.
curl http://localhost:8880/test.json | json

Answer 5

python -m json.tool
Curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/people/api.json | python -m json.tool
can also help.

Answer 6

You can install jq and make the query like below:
curl http://localhost:8080/observations/station/221 | jq

Answer 7

I found json_reformat to be very handy. So I just did the following:
curl http://127.0.0.1:5000/people/api.json | json_reformat
that's it!

Answer 8

Motivation: You want to print prettify JSON response after curl command request.
Solution: json_pp - commandline tool that converts between some input and output formats (one of them is JSON). This program was copied from json_xs and modified. The default input format is json and the default output format is json with pretty option.
Synposis:
json_pp [-v] [-f from_format] [-t to_format] [-json_opt options_to_json1[,options_to_json2[,...]]]
Formula: <someCommand> | json_pp
Example:
Request
curl -X https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1 | json_pp
Response
{
"completed" : false,
"id" : 1,
"title" : "delectus aut autem",
"userId" : 1
}

Answer 9

Check out curljson
$ pip install curljson
$ curljson -i <the-json-api-url>

Answer 10

With xidel:
curl <...> | xidel - -se '$json'
xidel can probably retrieve the JSON for you as well.

Answer 11

A lot more features (slice, filter and map and transform structured ) apart from formatting.
https://stedolan.github.io/jq/