How to prettyprint a JSON file

Question

I have a JSON file that is a mess that I want to prettyprint  What s the easiest way to do this in Python   I know PrettyPrint takes an  object   which I think can be a file  but I don t know how to pass a file in  Just using the filename doesn t work

User · Answer

Use pprint  https   docs python org 3 6 library pprint html  import pprint pprint pprint json    print   compared to pprint pprint    print json    feed     title    W3Schools Home Page    title detail     type    text plain    language   None   base        value    W3Schools Home Page     links      rel    alternate    type    text html    href    https   www w3schools com      link    https   www w3schools com    subtitle    Free web building tutorials    subtitle detail     type    text html    language   None   base        value    Free web building tutorials      entries        bozo   0   encoding    utf-8    version    rss20    namespaces        pprint pprint json    bozo   0    encoding    utf-8     entries         feed     link    https   www w3schools com              links      href    https   www w3schools com                         rel    alternate                         type    text html                subtitle    Free web building tutorials              subtitle detail     base                                      language   None                                 type    text html                                  value    Free web building tutorials               title    W3Schools Home Page              title detail     base                                   language   None                              type    text plain                               value    W3Schools Home Page       namespaces         version    rss20

User · Answer

def saveJson date fileToSave       with open fileToSave   w    as fileToSave          json dump date  fileToSave  ensure ascii True  indent 4  sort keys True    It works to display or save it to a file

User · Answer

I had a similar requirement to dump the contents of json file for logging  something quick and easy  print json dumps json load open os path join   lt myPath gt      lt myjson gt      quot r quot     indent   4     if you use it often then put it in a function  def pp json file path  file       print json dumps json load open os path join path  file    quot r quot     indent   4

User · Answer

You could use the built-in module pprint  https   docs python org 3 9 library pprint html   How you can read the file with json data and print it out  import json import pprint  json data   None with open  file name txt    r   as f      data   f read       json data   json loads data   pprint pprint json data

User · Answer

Pygmentize   Python json tool   Pretty Print with Syntax Highlighting  Pygmentize is a killer tool  See this   I combine python json tool with pygmentize  echo    foo    bar      python -m json tool   pygmentize -l json   See the link above for pygmentize installation instruction   A demo of this is in the image below

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I think that s better to parse the json before  to avoid errors   def format response response       try          parsed   json loads response text      except JSONDecodeError          return response text     return json dumps parsed  ensure ascii True  indent 4

User · Answer

Hopefully this helps someone else  In the case when there is a error that something is not json serializable the answers above will not work  If you only want to save it so that is human readable then you need to recursively call string on all the non dictionary elements of your dictionary  If you want to load it later then save it as a pickle file then load it  e g  torch save obj  f  works fine   This is what worked for me       def  to json dict with strings dictionary        quot  quot  quot      Convert dict to dict with leafs only being strings  So it recursively makes keys to strings     if they are not dictionaries       Use case          - saving dictionary of tensors  convert the tensors to strins           - saving arguments from script  e g  argparse  for it to be pretty      e g        quot  quot  quot      if type dictionary     dict          return str dictionary      d    k   to json dict with strings v  for k  v in dictionary items        return d  def to json dic       import types     import argparse      if type dic  is dict          dic   dict dic      else          dic   dic   dict       return  to json dict with strings dic   def save to json pretty dic  path  mode  w   indent 4  sort keys True       import json      with open path  mode  as f          json dump to json dic   f  indent indent  sort keys sort keys   def my pprint dic        quot  quot  quot        param dic       return       Note  this is not the same as pprint       quot  quot  quot      import json        make all keys strings recursively with their naitve str function     dic   to json dic        pretty print     pretty dic   json dumps dic  indent 4  sort keys True      print pretty dic        print json dumps dic  indent 4  sort keys True         return pretty dic  import torch   import json    results in non serializabe errors for torch Tensors from pprint import pprint  dic     x   torch randn 1  3    rec     y   torch randn 1  3     my pprint dic  pprint dic   output         quot rec quot              quot y quot    quot tensor   -0 3137   0 3138   1 2894    quot              quot x quot    quot tensor   -1 5909   0 0516  -1 5445    quot      rec     y   tensor   -0 3137   0 3138   1 2894        x   tensor   -1 5909   0 0516  -1 5445      I don t know why returning the string then printing it doesn t work but it seems you have to put the dumps directly in the print statement  Note pprint as it has been suggested already works too  Note not all objects can be converted to a dict with dict dic  which is why some of my code has checks on this condition  Context  I wanted to save pytorch strings but I kept getting the error  TypeError  tensor is not JSON serializable  so I coded the above  Note that yes  in pytorch you use torch save but pickle files aren t readable  Check this related post  https   discuss pytorch org t typeerror-tensor-is-not-json-serializable 36065 3  PPrint also has indent arguments but I didn t like how it looks      pprint stats  indent 4  sort dicts True   output       cca        all     avg   tensor 0 5132    std   tensor 0 1532                    avg   tensor  0 5993  0 5571  0 4910  0 4053                    rep     avg   tensor 0 5491    std   tensor 0 0743                    std   tensor  0 0316  0 0368  0 0910  0 2490          cka        all     avg   tensor 0 7885    std   tensor 0 3449                    avg   tensor  1 0000  0 9840  0 9442  0 2260                    rep     avg   tensor 0 9761    std   tensor 0 0468                    std   tensor  5 9043e-07  2 9688e-02  6 3634e-02  2 1686e-01          cosine        all     avg   tensor 0 5931    std   tensor 0 7158                       avg   tensor   0 9825   0 9001   0 7909  -0 3012                       rep     avg   tensor 0 8912    std   tensor 0 1571                       std   tensor  0 0371  0 1232  0 1976  0 9536          nes        all     avg   tensor 0 6771    std   tensor 0 2891                    avg   tensor  0 9326  0 8038  0 6852  0 2867                    rep     avg   tensor 0 8072    std   tensor 0 1596                    std   tensor  0 0695  0 1266  0 1578  0 2339          nes output        all     avg   None   std   None                          avg   tensor 0 2975                          rep     avg   None   std   None                          std   tensor 0 0945         query loss        all     avg   None   std   None                          avg   tensor 12 3746                          rep     avg   None   std   None                          std   tensor 13 7910     compare to         quot cca quot              quot all quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 5144  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 1553  quot                      quot avg quot    quot tensor  0 6023  0 5612  0 4874  0 4066   quot            quot rep quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 5503  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 0796  quot                      quot std quot    quot tensor  0 0285  0 0367  0 1004  0 2493   quot              quot cka quot              quot all quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 7888  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 3444  quot                      quot avg quot    quot tensor  1 0000  0 9840  0 9439  0 2271   quot            quot rep quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 9760  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 0468  quot                      quot std quot    quot tensor  5 7627e-07  2 9689e-02  6 3541e-02  2 1684e-01   quot              quot cosine quot              quot all quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 5945  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 7146  quot                      quot avg quot    quot tensor   0 9825   0 9001   0 7907  -0 2953   quot            quot rep quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 8911  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 1571  quot                      quot std quot    quot tensor  0 0371  0 1231  0 1975  0 9554   quot              quot nes quot              quot all quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 6773  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 2886  quot                      quot avg quot    quot tensor  0 9326  0 8037  0 6849  0 2881   quot            quot rep quot                  quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 8070  quot                quot std quot    quot tensor 0 1595  quot                      quot std quot    quot tensor  0 0695  0 1265  0 1576  0 2341   quot              quot nes output quot              quot all quot                  quot avg quot    quot None quot                quot std quot    quot None quot                      quot avg quot    quot tensor 0 2976  quot            quot rep quot                  quot avg quot    quot None quot                quot std quot    quot None quot                      quot std quot    quot tensor 0 0945  quot              quot query loss quot              quot all quot                  quot avg quot    quot None quot                quot std quot    quot None quot                      quot avg quot    quot tensor 12 3616  quot            quot rep quot                  quot avg quot    quot None quot                quot std quot    quot None quot                      quot std quot    quot tensor 13 7976  quot

User · Answer

To be able to pretty print from the command line and be able to have control over the indentation etc  you can set up an alias similar to this   alias jsonpp  python -c  import sys  json  print json dumps json load sys stdin   sort keys True  indent 2      And then use the alias in one of these ways   cat myfile json   jsonpp jsonpp  lt  myfile json

User · Answer

It s far from perfect  but it does the job   data   data replace         n      you can improve it  add indenting and so on  but if you just want to be able to read a cleaner json  this is the way to go

User · Answer

Use this function and don t sweat having to remember if your JSON is a str or dict again - just look at the pretty print   import json  def pp json json thing  sort True  indents 4       if type json thing  is str          print json dumps json loads json thing   sort keys sort  indent indents       else          print json dumps json thing  sort keys sort  indent indents       return None  pp json your json string or dict

User · Answer

Here s a simple example of pretty printing JSON to the console in a nice way in Python  without requiring the JSON to be on your computer as a local file    import pprint import json  from urllib request import urlopen    Only used to get this example     Getting a JSON example for this example  r   urlopen  https   mdn github io fetch-examples fetch-json products json   text   r read       To print it pprint pprint json loads text

User · Answer

The json module already implements some basic pretty printing with the indent parameter that specifies how many spaces to indent by    gt  gt  gt  import json  gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt  your json      foo     bar    baz   null  1 0  2      gt  gt  gt  parsed   json loads your json   gt  gt  gt  print json dumps parsed  indent 4  sort keys True          foo                   bar                  baz                null               1 0               2                     To parse a file  use json load     with open  filename txt    r   as handle      parsed   json load handle

User · Answer

You can do this on the command line   python3 -m json tool some json    as already mentioned in the commentaries to the question  thanks to  Kai Petzke for the python3 suggestion    Actually python is not my favourite tool as far as json processing on the command line is concerned  For simple pretty printing is ok  but if you want to manipulate the json it can become overcomplicated  You d soon need to write a separate script-file  you could end up with maps whose keys are u some-key   python unicode   which makes selecting fields more difficult and doesn t really go in the direction of pretty-printing   You can also use jq   jq   some json   and you get colors as a bonus  and way easier extendability    Addendum  There is some confusion in the comments about using jq to process large JSON files on the one hand  and having a very large jq program on the other   For pretty-printing a file consisting of a single large JSON entity  the practical limitation is RAM   For pretty-printing a 2GB file consisting of a single array of real-world data  the  maximum resident set size  required for pretty-printing was 5GB  whether using jq 1 5 or 1 6   Note also that jq can be used from within python after pip install jq

User · Answer

You could try pprintjson     Installation    pip3 install pprintjson   Usage  Pretty print JSON from a file using the pprintjson CLI     pprintjson    path to file json    Pretty print JSON from a stdin using the pprintjson CLI     echo     a   1   b    string    c   true      pprintjson   Pretty print JSON from a string using the pprintjson CLI     pprintjson -c     a   1   b    string    c   true      Pretty print JSON from a string with an indent of 1     pprintjson -c     a   1   b    string    c   true    -i 1   Pretty print JSON from a string and save output to a file output json     pprintjson -c     a   1   b    string    c   true    -o   output json   Output

[python] How to prettyprint a JSON file?

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