--json flag still does not output as JSON standard

[agad98]

When run the wizard and ask it to scan a filesystem, the output to stdio is just aa stream of objects, with no delimination or encapsulation with square brackets.

This was claimed to have been fixed in the new version in this issue #169

But I am running the latest version and it is still not fixed. I tried both, the dev and the packaged release, both behave the same.

TruffleHog Version

Latest dev
trufflehog dev

Steps to Reproduce

run with --json flag, or set output to json true in the wizard

Environment

• OS: Windows 11

[agad98]

I had to use trufflehog filesystem C:\some\directory --json | jq -s . to get the expected result. But it would be nice if we can do that natively. Or, have an option regarding how the user wants their json output.

[baruchiro]

Maybe we can add an option to output into a file?

[galovics]

I second this. Would be really nice to write directly to file instead of redirecting the output of the tool into a file.

I wanted to import the JSON output to excel but was unable to do so.

[kashifkhan0771]

Hello everyone,
Thank you for your feedback regarding JSON output formatting. Let me clarify how TruffleHog's --json flag currently works:

The --json flag outputs valid JSON format, where each result is printed as a separate JSON object on its own line. This is intentional for several reasons:

1. Streaming support: Results are printed as they're discovered during concurrent processing
2. Memory efficiency: No need to buffer all results before output
3. Tool compatibility: JSONL is widely supported by log processing tools

Both formatting requests mentioned can be achieved with simple commands:

For pretty-printed JSON array:

trufflehog filesystem C:\some\directory --json | jq -s .

For file output:

trufflehog filesystem C:\some\directory --json > results.json

The JSONL format is actually preferred for security scanning tools as it handles large datasets efficiently and integrates well with monitoring and log analysis pipelines.

Let us know if you have any other questions!