Display curl output in readable JSON format in Unix shell script

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_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 additinal jq options check the manual

---

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"
}