Given a file with a large JSON object all on one line like
{"versions":[{"count":2,"version":""},{"count":1,"version":"1.1.1"},{"count":14,"version":"2.9"},{...
How can I format this to be human readable in Vim?
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1Related StackOverflow Post: How to fix JSON indentation in vim?– Peter RinckerJul 30, 2018 at 15:37
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8 Answers
Or you can install jq which is faster (written in C) from your package manager (e.g. sudo apt install jq in Ubuntu/Debian, sudo dnf install jq on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS) or from source and then in vim, type:
:%!jq .
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1On MacOS after installing jq with
brew install jqI could also just type:%!jqwithout a dot at the end– olik79Apr 20, 2021 at 19:01
This one-liner works well to format JSON in Vim into a human readable form:
:%!python -m json.tool
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1Do you memorize that and type it every time or do you use some kind of alias?– asedsamiDec 13, 2019 at 17:05
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I tend to use the
:%!jq .answer these days, as I do less with Python and tend to havejqinstalled on my systems for any JSON work in CLI. I also get notifications for this SO question quite often, so it helps me not to forget :P I prefer vim with minimal customization, no plugins, etc, which is another reason thejqsolution is now my preferred.– ljs.devDec 14, 2019 at 7:37 -
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6Just a warning that this will escape some characters into ASCII only. So if you want UTF8 encoding jq is the better option. Feb 5, 2020 at 3:01
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To format in a deterministic way, we need to sort the hash. None of the other answers did that for me, so I created my own:
function! FormatJson()
python << EOF
import vim
import json
try:
buf = vim.current.buffer
json_content = '\n'.join(buf[:])
content = json.loads(json_content)
sorted_content = json.dumps(content, indent=4, sort_keys=True)
buf[:] = sorted_content.split('\n')
except Exception, e:
print e
EOF
endfunction
Usage:
:call FormatJson()
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1Welcome to Vi and Vim! Nice first answer; it's interesting that you consider the sorting aspect!– D. Ben Knoble ♦Nov 19, 2019 at 15:26
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1About the sorting I'm pretty sure
jqmentionned in SebMa answers has a--sort-keysoption which would do the job. But it's cool to write your own implementation too :)– statoxNov 19, 2019 at 16:23
I use this :Jsonf command. It's can format unicode.
command! Jsonf :execute '%!python -c "import json,sys,collections,re; sys.stdout.write(re.sub(r\"\\\u[0-9a-f]{4}\", lambda m:m.group().decode(\"unicode_escape\").encode(\"utf-8\"),json.dumps(json.load(sys.stdin, object_pairs_hook=collections.OrderedDict), indent=2)))"'
If PHP is available, add the tool jf as a JSON Formatter by Composer:
$ composer global require codegear/json-formatter
Then Format current file:
:%!jf %
Or add a keymap in vimrc:
nnoremap <Leader>jf :%!jf %<CR>
If nodejs and xargs are available on your system you can add the following command to your .vimrc
command! -range FormatJson <line1>,<line2>!xargs -0 -I {} node -e 'console.log(JSON.stringify({}, null, 2));'
After that you can visual select the JSON text in the buffer and run
:'<,'>FormatJson
to pretty print it. Works with Unicode too.
Another solution is to use coc-format-json.
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1Welcome to Vi and Vim! This answer would benefit from further explanation via edit.– D. Ben Knoble ♦Mar 9, 2021 at 14:42
I wanted to open jq with vim. However i didn't manage to find a way to do it in one command.
I wrote a shell script, and it worked for me (linux version : redhat 7.6):
# Don't miss the dot after jq
cat input.json | jq . > output.json
vim output.json
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2You can use
-to read from stdin:jq input.json . | vim -(maybe you need to reverse theinput.jsonand.in thatjqcommand). Another option would be to use-cor+to run a command when Vim opens:vim +':%!jq .' input.jsonMay 3, 2021 at 7:41