README.md

prettyjson

Package for formatting JSON data in a coloured YAML-style, perfect for CLI output

How to install

Just install it via NPM:

$ npm install prettyjson

Using it (from the CLI)

This package installs a command line interface to render JSON data in a more convenient way. You can use the CLI in three different ways:

Decode a JSON file: If you want to see the contents of a JSON file, just pass it as the first argument to the CLI:

$ prettyjson package.json

Decode the stdin: You can also pipe the result of a command (for example an HTTP request) to the CLI to see the JSON result in a clearer way:

$ curl https://api.github.com/users/rafeca | prettyjson

Decode random strings: if you call the CLI with no arguments, you'll get a prompt where you can past JSON strings and they'll be automatically displayed in a clearer way:

If you install the package globally (with npm install -g prettyjson), the CLI will be installed automatically in your PATH thanks to npm.

Customizing colors via command line

Now it's possible to customize the colors of the output via environment variables, thanks to @bahamas10:

$ PRETTYJSON_KEYS=red PRETTYJSON_DASH=blue PRETTYJSON_STRING=yellow prettyjson package.json

The available options are PRETTYJSON_KEYS, PRETTYJSON_DASH, PRETTYJSON_STRING and PRETTYJSON_INDENT.

Using it (from Node.js)

It's pretty easy to use it... you just have to include it in your script and call the render() method:

var prettyjson = require('prettyjson');

var data = {
  username: 'rafeca',
  url: 'https://github.com/rafeca',
  twitter_account: 'https://twitter.com/rafeca',
  projects: ['prettyprint', 'connfu']
};

console.log(prettyjson.render(data));

And will output:

You can also configure the colors of the hash keys and array dashes (using colors.js colors syntax):

var prettyjson = require('prettyjson');

var data = {
  username: 'rafeca',
  url: 'https://github.com/rafeca',
  twitter_account: 'https://twitter.com/rafeca',
  projects: ['prettyprint', 'connfu']
};

console.log(prettyjson.render(data, {
  keysColor: 'rainbow',
  dashColor: 'magenta',
  stringColor: 'white'
}));

Will output something like:

Annotated source

You can check the annotated source for more information about how it works

Running Tests

To run the test suite first invoke the following command within the repo, installing the development dependencies:

$ npm install --dev

then run the tests:

$ npm test

You can check the package's test coverage if you are one of those test paranoics