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The python utils section missed the very cool json.tool that can pretty print JSON files (and exists on your OS if it includes Python): cat /tmp/foo.json | pyt
by dvirsky 6y ago
The python utils section missed the very cool json.tool that can pretty print JSON files (and exists on your OS if it includes Python):
cat /tmp/foo.json | python -m json.tool
https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#module-json.tool https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#module-json.tool
- teraflop 6y agoI like jq (https://stedolan.github.io/jq/ https://stedolan.github.io/jq/) for this purpose. It's a very flexible tool for filtering, querying and manipulating JSON data, but when run with no arguments, it performs a no-op transformation that just pretty-prints its input.
- kabacha 6y agojq is yet another bloated syntax to learn and I'd definitely refrain from suggesting it to anyone whos not working with json everyday.
- gen220 6y agoI tend to agree, regretfully. I’ve unfortunately often seen coworkers spend half an hour painstakingly crafting and debugging a jq query, that could have been cobbled together in a few minutes with grep and sed. I think the issue is that jq’s interface makes it really hard to “narrow in” on the right solution, whereas grep is much more forgiving.
- michaelcampbell 6y agoI agree in the general case, but the syntax for pretty printing which is what he is doing is literally nothing. Or 'jq', if you include the binary name. Hardly "bloated".
- xgt001 6y agoAgreed about the bloated syntax bit. Whenever I need to work with jq , I tend to trial with jid first and then use the actual syntax with jq. Convoluted if you think about it....
- sigmonsays 6y agoi dont know if i'd call its syntax bloated at all. jq is something i've hated learning but powerful beyond tying grep and awk together. jq is a tool, and like every tool, requires some upfront learning. Once mastered its much more productive than the grep/awk/friends solution. Take this example JSON <pre> { "code": 42, "items": [ { "type":"color", "name":"red", "rgb": [120, 2, 2 ]}, { "type":"color", "name":"green", "rgb": [2, 120, 2]} ] } </pre> for instance, to grab the rgb field for the color green... jq -r '.items | .[] | select(.name=="green") | .rgb
- benibela 6y agoAn alternative would be to use XPath 3.1. I am implementing XPath in a tool called Xidel. There the syntax for the example is much simpler: xidel - -e '?items ?* [?name="green"] ?rgb' Depends what kabacha means with bloated. The XPath syntax is more verbose, but less cryptic
- dvirsky 6y agojq doesn't come pre-installed with every OS, python's json.tool does. So it's always there when you need it, no installation required, which is why I put it the same category of all those classic command-line tools.
- philwelch 6y agoI don’t actually believe my last Linux install came with a system Python. And as a Python developer I always end up using some tool or another to manage installations of multiple Python versions anyway. Furthermore jq just works as a classic command-line tool.
- traviscj 6y ago> ... just works as a classic command-line tool. impossible to understate the value in: not frequently fucking up your ability to run the critical/mundane/everyday/musclememory commands you've come to rely on after maybe 100+ invocations/week as far back as you can remember just because someone you've never met wanted to bump the .ruby-version in your java monorepo
- dvirsky 6y agoWhat Linux distro do you use that it doesn't have Python on it?
- everybodyknows 6y agoFirefox has quite a nice interactive JSON viewer, built in.
- filterfish 6y agoWhich doesn't help on the command line.
- everybodyknows 6y agoInvocation from command line: $ firefox --new-window somefile.json The viewer does however suffer from poor scaling with file size.
- dvirsky 6y agobut you are out of command-line once you do that. The whole point of this guide is that you can combine all these tools together.
- trishmapow2 6y agoDon't abuse cats, use `python3 -m json.tool < test.json` instead.
- smcl 6y agoWhy go to all that extra effort to type a "<" character? $ python3 -m json.tool test.json
- traviscj 6y agoBit of pointless contrarian opinion from a long time cat|'r: > Characters saved with "<"? 3. > Hours lost with accidental ">"? unbounded. Preface: I'm confident on the shell & with my keyboard: I've been using shell redirects for a couple decades, learned touch-typing up to around 80WPM, and used to note-take math lectures live in latex. Yes, I have noclobber enabled. But... I can't promise myself I'm on a machine configured that way OR that I won't typo this one on a file that really matters. I kinda use of `cat` as a `immutability-please` command: it _creates_ a barrier/seam between this file and whatever I'm doing with it, such that I'm _guaranteed_ nothing downstream will mutate it (as long as everything only works on stdio). In a kinda similar way: by starting with `cat x |` (or even just `cat x`, frequently!), the rest of that compound command is _input source independent_ (and even _ignorant_!) -- if I want to hook it up later to a `curl example.com/xyz.json`, I don't need to split it into separate commands/introduce temp files/etc. This is especially because I find myself doing a _really_ quick scan of the entire file ("did it return the actual object this time or just `{}`?"), then piling on transforms from there. Something about doing `cat x | head` and then kill-wording to fill in `next-thing` feels faster and more consistent than `head x` and then `next-thing x`, maybe because the filenames are often much longer than the commands? Maybe I need a "go to start of line, forward-kill one word" hotkey? tl;dr: i'm playing psychological games with myself and TBH not sure I'm coming out ahead.
- hikarudo 6y agoWow, you described my workflow exactly. Using "<" might be shorter and faster-for-the-machine, but it's less readable and breaks the left-to-right order. I also frequently start with `cat x`, see what's in the file, move on to `cat x | some filter` etc.
- ketanmaheshwari 6y agoThank you for this suggestion -- it is now included in the slides.