jsonpretty: handy when playing with web services

October 17, 2011

I just ran into a handy little utility: jsonpretty.

$sudo gem install json jsonpretty

While

$curl -i http://localhost:8081/openmrs-standalone/ws/rest/v1/catalog

gives you something like this:

{"catalog":[{"name":"Cohort","operations":[{"name":"GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort?q","description":"Fetch all non-retired that match this parameter"},{"name":"GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}","description":"Fetch by unique uuid"},{"name":"GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort","description":"Fetch all non-retired"},{"name":"POST http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort","description":"Create with properties in request"},{"name":"POST http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}","description":"Edit with given uuid, only modifying properties in request"},{"name":"DELETE http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}?!purge","description":"Delete this object from the database"},{"name":"DELETE http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}?purge","description":"Delete this object from the database"}],"url":"http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort","representations":[{"name":"ref","properties":["uuid","display","links"]},{"name":"default","properties":["uuid","name","description","voided","memberIds","links"]},{"name":"full","properties":["uuid","name","description","memberIds","voided","auditInfo","links"]}]},{"name":"CohortMember","operations":[{"name":"GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{parentUuid}/members/{uuid}","description":"Fetch by unique uuid"},{"name":"GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{parentUuid}/members","description":"Fetch all non-retired"},{"name":"POST http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{parentUuid}/members","description":"Create with properties in request"},{"name":"POST http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{parentUuid}/members/{uuid}","description":"Edit with given uuid, only modifying properties in request"},{"name":"DELETE http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{parentUuid}/members/{uuid}?!purge","description":"Delete this object from the database"},{"name":"DELETE http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{parentUuid}/members/{uuid}?purge","description":"Delete this object from the database"}],...

adding jsonpretty:

$curl -i http://localhost:8081/openmrs-standalone/ws/rest/v1/catalog | jsonpretty

gets you something much prettier:

{
  "catalog": [
    {
      "name": "Cohort",
      "operations": [
        {
          "name": "GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort?q",
          "description": "Fetch all non-retired that match this parameter"
        },
        {
          "name": "GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}",
          "description": "Fetch by unique uuid"
        },
        {
          "name": "GET http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort",
          "description": "Fetch all non-retired"
        },
        {
          "name": "POST http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort",
          "description": "Create with properties in request"
        },
        {
          "name": "POST http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}",
          "description": "Edit with given uuid, only modifying properties in request"
        },
        {
          "name": "DELETE http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}?!purge",
          "description": "Delete this object from the database"
        },
        {
          "name": "DELETE http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort/{uuid}?purge",
          "description": "Delete this object from the database"
        }
      ],
      "url": "http://localhost:8081/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/cohort",
      "representations": [
        {
          "name": "ref",
          "properties": [
            "uuid",
            "display",
            "links"
          ]
        },
        {
          "name": "default",
          "properties": [
            "uuid",
            "name",
            "description",
            "voided",
            "memberIds",
            "links"
          ]
        },
        {
          "name": "full",
          "properties": [
            "uuid",
            "name",
            "description",
            "memberIds",
            "voided",
            "auditInfo",
            "links"
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    ...

Nice! Thank you jsonpretty! 🙂