How to Pretty Print JSON and XML from the Command Line

As developers we often need to take minified JSON and XML and pretty print it so it is human readable. A multitude of websites provide a free service where you can enter minified JSON or XML and it will format it the data so it is human readable. The problem is this can lead to leaking data causing security incidents. The solution is to write a couple of bash scripts to pretty print.

A big thanks to Campovski's answer on stackoverflow for the JSON and Ben Noland's answer on stackoverflow and Anton I. Sipos' comment for the XML

I took these answers a little further and created a bash script that accepts arguments so you can pretty print

• A file
• The result returned form an API
• A string
• Data piped in

Both scripts have the same usage

Format a file with the -f flag

JSON

./pretty_json.sh -f <name_of_file>

XML

./pretty_xml.sh -f <name_of_file>

Format the return value of an API with the -u flag

JSON

./pretty_json.sh -u www.api.com

XML

./pretty_xml.sh -u www.api.com

Format a string with the -s flag

JSON

./pretty_json.sh -s '{"name":"Luke","city":"Sydney","country":"Australia"}'

XML

./pretty_xml.sh -s '<xml><name>Luke</name><city>Sydney</city><country>Australia</country></xml>'

Format a string with no flag set

JSON

./pretty_json.sh '{"name":"Luke","city":"Sydney","country":"Australia"}'

XML

./pretty_xml.sh '<xml><name>Luke</name><city>Sydney</city><country>Australia</country></xml>'

Pipe a value to be formated

JSON

echo '{"name":"Luke","city":"Sydney","country":"Australia"}' | ./pretty_json.sh

XML

echo '<xml><name>Luke</name><city>Sydney</city><country>Australia</country></xml>' | ./pretty_xml.sh

The scripts are below

pretty_json.sh

#!/bin/bash

options=$(getopt f:s:u: "$@")

[ $? -eq 0 ] || {

echo "Invalid option. No action taken. Script will now exit"

exit 1

}

for i

do

case "$i" in

-f)

# file name provided

shift;

python -m json.tool $1;

exit 0;;

-s)

# string provided

shift;

echo "$1" | python -m json.tool;

exit 0;;

-u)

# url provided

shift;

curl "$1" | python -m json.tool;

exit 0;;

esac

done

if [ -z "$1" ]

then

# Data piped in

echo "`python -m json.tool < /dev/stdin`";

else

# String provided as the first argument

echo "$1" | python -m json.tool;

fi

pretty_xml.sh

#!/bin/bash

options=$(getopt f:s:u: "$@")

[ $? -eq 0 ] || {

echo "Invalid option. No action taken. Script will now exit"

exit 1

}

for i

do

case "$i" in

-f)

# file name provided

shift;

#python -c "import sys;import xml.dom.minidom;f=open('$1', 'r');print(xml.dom.minidom.parseString(f).toprettyxml())";

echo "$1" | python -c 'import sys;import xml.dom.minidom;s=sys.stdin.read();f=open(s.strip(), "r");print(xml.dom.minidom.parseString(f.read()).toprettyxml())'

exit 0;;

-s)

# string provided

shift;

echo "$1" | python -c 'import sys;import xml.dom.minidom;s=sys.stdin.read();print(xml.dom.minidom.parseString(s).toprettyxml())';

exit 0;;

-u)

# url provided

shift;

curl "$1" | python -c 'import sys;import xml.dom.minidom;s=sys.stdin.read();print(xml.dom.minidom.parseString(s).toprettyxml())';

exit 0;;

esac

done

if [ -z "$1" ]

then

# Data piped in

#echo "`python -m json.tool < /dev/stdin`";

python -c 'import sys;import xml.dom.minidom;s=sys.stdin.read();print(xml.dom.minidom.parseString(s).toprettyxml())'

else

# String provided as the first argument

echo "$1" | python -c 'import sys;import xml.dom.minidom;s=sys.stdin.read();print(xml.dom.minidom.parseString(s).toprettyxml())';

fi

# source https://stackoverflow.com/a/1920585/409119