How to "pretty" format JSON output in Ruby on Rails

user_10333 0
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I would like my JSON output in Ruby on Rails to be "pretty" or nicely formatted.

Right now, I call to_json and my JSON is all on one line. At times this can be difficult to see if there is a problem in the JSON output stream.

Is there way to configure to make my JSON "pretty" or nicely formatted in Rails?

pretty-print ruby-on-rails ruby json
20 Answers

I have used the gem CodeRay and it works pretty well. The format includes colors and it recognises a lot of different formats.

I have used it on a gem that can be used for debugging rails APIs and it works pretty well.

By the way, the gem is named 'api_explorer' (http://www.github.com/toptierlabs/api_explorer)

user_9771210

if you want to handle active_record object, puts is enough.

for example:

  • without puts
2.6.0 (main):0 > User.first.to_json
  User Load (0.4ms)  SELECT  "users".* FROM "users" ORDER BY "users"."id" ASC LIMIT $1  [["LIMIT", 1]]
=> "{\"id\":1,\"admin\":true,\"email\":\"admin@gmail.com\",\"password_digest\":\"$2a$10$TQy3P7NT8KrdCzliNUsZzuhmo40LGKoth2hwD3OI.kD0lYiIEwB1y\",\"created_at\":\"2021-07-20T08:34:19.350Z\",\"updated_at\":\"2021-07-20T08:34:19.350Z\",\"name\":\"Arden Stark\"}"
  • with puts
2.6.0 (main):0 > puts User.first.to_json
  User Load (0.3ms)  SELECT  "users".* FROM "users" ORDER BY "users"."id" ASC LIMIT $1  [["LIMIT", 1]]
{"id":1,"admin":true,"email":"admin@gmail.com","password_digest":"$2a$10$TQy3P7NT8KrdCzliNUsZzuhmo40LGKoth2hwD3OI.kD0lYiIEwB1y","created_at":"2021-07-20T08:34:19.350Z","updated_at":"2021-07-20T08:34:19.350Z","name":"Arden Stark"}
=> nil

if you are handle the json data, JSON.pretty_generate is a good alternative

Example:

obj = {foo: [:bar, :baz], bat: {bam: 0, bad: 1}}
json = JSON.pretty_generate(obj)
puts json

Output:

{
  "foo": [
    "bar",
    "baz"
  ],
  "bat": {
    "bam": 0,
    "bad": 1
  }
}

if it's in the ROR project, I always prefer to use gem pry-rails to format my codes in the rails console rather than awesome_print which is too verbose.

Example of pry-rails:

enter image description here

it also has syntax highlight.

user_72626460

Pretty print variant (Rails):

my_obj = {
  'array' => [1, 2, 3, { "sample" => "hash"}, 44455, 677778, nil ],
  foo: "bar", rrr: {"pid": 63, "state with nil and \"nil\"": false},
  wwww: 'w' * 74
}

require 'pp'
puts my_obj.as_json.pretty_inspect.
            gsub('=>', ': ').
            gsub(/"(?:[^"\\]|\\.)*"|\bnil\b/) {|m| m == 'nil' ? 'null' : m }.
            gsub(/\s+$/, "")

Result:

{"array": [1, 2, 3, {"sample": "hash"}, 44455, 677778, null],
 "foo": "bar",
 "rrr": {"pid": 63, "state with nil and \"nil\"": false},
 "wwww":
  "wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww"}
user_16772700

Simplest example, I could think of:

my_json = '{ "name":"John", "age":30, "car":null }'
puts JSON.pretty_generate(JSON.parse(my_json))

Rails console example:

core dev 1555:0> my_json = '{ "name":"John", "age":30, "car":null }'
=> "{ \"name\":\"John\", \"age\":30, \"car\":null }"
core dev 1556:0> puts JSON.pretty_generate(JSON.parse(my_json))
{
  "name": "John",
  "age": 30,
  "car": null
}
=> nil
user_34855420

I had a JSON object in the rails console, and wanted to display it nicely in the console (as opposed to displaying like a massive concatenated string), it was as simple as:

data.as_json
user_57837450
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