Coloring JSON output in python

Question

In python, If I have a JSON object obj, then I can

print json.dumps(obj, sort_keys=True, indent=4)

in order to get a pretty printout of the object. Is it possible to prettify the output even further: add some colors in particular? Something like the result of [1]

cat foo.json | jq '.'

[1] jq the JSON Swiss Army toolbox: http://stedolan.github.io/jq/

Maybe [ipython](http://ipython.org/) has something for this, buy i don't know exactly — stalk, Sep 03 '14 at 07:52
@stalk: I want it to be integrated in the script, such that the output to the console will be colored. — Dror, Sep 03 '14 at 07:54
It is definitely possible (you can just call this `jq` as a subprocess from Python) but if you are asking: "is there a way to do that with the built-in json library" then the answer is "no". — freakish, Sep 03 '14 at 08:00
@freakish: I could live with calling `jq`. Can you explain how can I do it? — Dror, Sep 03 '14 at 08:05
@Dror Actually I was wrong. You can't do this with subprocess, see this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13299550/preserve-colored-output-from-python-os-popen — freakish, Sep 03 '14 at 08:39
@Dror I think that what you are left with is to either search for a library that supports this or write it on your own. — freakish, Sep 03 '14 at 08:43

score 57 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 23 '15 at 11:30

57

You can use Pygments to color your JSON output. Based on what you have:

formatted_json = json.dumps(obj, sort_keys=True, indent=4)

from pygments import highlight, lexers, formatters
colorful_json = highlight(unicode(formatted_json, 'UTF-8'), lexers.JsonLexer(), formatters.TerminalFormatter())
print(colorful_json)

Output example:

answered Aug 23 '15 at 11:30

arnuschky

2,099
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15

6

What do I need in order to avoid `NameError: name 'unicode' is not defined`? – Dror Aug 24 '15 at 05:57
16

Then you are using python 3 and should simply use `colorful_json = highlight(formatted_json, lexers.JsonLexer(), formatters.TerminalFormatter())` – arnuschky Aug 25 '15 at 08:51
1

How can I achieve this on Windows? – mazunki Mar 20 '19 at 18:19
`NameError: name 'unicode' is not defined` ---> `import unicode` – Rohit Sehgal Jul 23 '20 at 05:30

Haterind · Answer 2 · 2021-06-08T17:11:28.150

The accepted answer doesn't seem to be working with more recent versions of Pygments and Python. So here's how you can do it in Pygments 2.7.2+:

import json
from pygments import highlight
from pygments.formatters.terminal256 import Terminal256Formatter
from pygments.lexers.web import JsonLexer

d = {"test": [1, 2, 3, 4], "hello": "world"}

# Generate JSON
raw_json = json.dumps(d, indent=4)

# Colorize it
colorful = highlight(
    raw_json,
    lexer=JsonLexer(),
    formatter=Terminal256Formatter(),
)

# Print to console
print(colorful)

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 14 '22 at 13:15

2

I like using rich which has a dependency on pyments, but it covers all your console coloring needs, it also autoformats json:

answered Jan 14 '22 at 13:15

MortenB

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 16 '21 at 10:56

For python3 :

#!/usr/bin/python3
#coding: utf-8

from pygments import highlight, lexers, formatters
import json

d = {"test": [1, 2, 3, 4], "hello": "world"}

formatted_json = json.dumps(d, indent=4)
colorful_json = highlight(formatted_json, lexers.JsonLexer(), formatters.TerminalFormatter())
print(colorful_json)

Coloring JSON output in python

4 Answers4