Many FreeBSD utilities support a --libxo flag that produces structured output, although there isn't special handling in shells yet. % ls --libxo json {

Many FreeBSD utilities support a --libxo flag that produces structured output, although there isn't special handling in shells yet. % ls --libxo json {"__version": "1", "file-information": {"directory":[{"entry": [{"name":"bar"}, {"name":"foo"}]}]} } % ls --libxo xml <file-information __version="1"><directory><entry><name>bar</name></entry><entry><name>foo</name></entry></directory></file-information>