ciscoparser

High-performance parser for Cisco show command output into structured data.

Network engineers spend enormous time manually reading and interpreting Cisco CLI output. ciscoparser takes raw show command text and converts it into clean, structured Python dictionaries — ready for automation, monitoring, auditing, or feeding into dashboards and APIs.

Installation

pip install ciscoparser

Or install from source:

git clone https://github.com/cwccie/ciscoparser.git
cd ciscoparser
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quick Start

Parse show ip route

from ciscoparser import ShowCommandParser

raw_output = """
Codes: C - connected, S - static, O - OSPF
Gateway of last resort is 10.0.0.1 to network 0.0.0.0

S*    0.0.0.0/0 [1/0] via 10.0.0.1
C     192.168.1.0/24 is directly connected, GigabitEthernet0/0
O     10.1.0.0/24 [110/20] via 192.168.1.2, 00:05:32, GigabitEthernet0/0
"""

parser = ShowCommandParser(raw_output, command="show ip route")
result = parser.parse()

for route in result["routes"]:
    print(f"{route['prefix']:20s} via {route['next_hop']:20s} ({route['protocol']})")

Output:

0.0.0.0/0            via 10.0.0.1             (static)
192.168.1.0/24       via directly connected   (connected)
10.1.0.0/24          via 192.168.1.2          (ospf)

Auto-Detection

Don't know the command? ciscoparser auto-detects it from the output patterns:

parser = ShowCommandParser(raw_output)
result = parser.parse()  # Automatically detects "show ip route"
print(result["command"])  # "show ip route"

JSON & YAML Serialization

from ciscoparser import ShowCommandParser, to_json, to_yaml

parser = ShowCommandParser(raw_output, command="show version")
result = parser.parse()

print(to_json(result, indent=2))
print(to_yaml(result))

CLI Usage

ciscoparser includes a command-line interface:

# Parse a file and output JSON
ciscoparser parse router-output.txt

# Parse with explicit command and YAML output
ciscoparser parse router-output.txt --command "show ip route" --format yaml

# Detect what command produced the output
ciscoparser detect router-output.txt

# Verbose mode for debugging
ciscoparser -v parse router-output.txt

API Reference

ShowCommandParser(output, command=None)

Main parser class.

• output (str): Raw CLI text from the Cisco device.
• command (str | None): Command name (e.g., "show ip route"). Auto-detected if omitted.

Methods:

Method	Returns	Description
parse()	dict	Parse output into structured data. Raises ValueError if command unknown.
detect_command()	str | None	Auto-detect command type from output patterns.

to_json(data, indent=2, sort_keys=False)

Serialize parsed data to JSON string.

to_yaml(data, default_flow_style=False)

Serialize parsed data to YAML string.

Supported Commands

Command	Key Fields	Notes
show ip route	prefix, next_hop, interface, metric, protocol, ad, uptime	Handles ECMP multi-path, all protocol codes
show interfaces	name, status, protocol, ip_address, speed, duplex, mtu, counters	Input/output packets, errors, drops, rates
show bgp summary	neighbor, remote_as, state, prefixes_received, uptime	Also handles show ip bgp summary
show bgp neighbors	neighbor, remote_as, state, prefixes	Detailed neighbor output
show version	hostname, model, serial_number, ios_version, uptime, memory	IOS and IOS-XE formats
show ip bgp	network, next_hop, metric, local_pref, weight, as_path, origin	BGP table with status codes

Output Structure

Every parsed result includes a command key indicating the detected/specified command:

{
  "command": "show ip route",
  "routes": [...],
  "total_routes": 5
}

All field names use snake_case for consistency.

Development

# Install dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest -v

# Run tests with coverage
pytest --cov=ciscoparser --cov-report=term-missing

# Lint
ruff check src/ tests/

License

MIT License. Copyright (c) 2026 Corey Wade.