pretty print json with python

I like pretty things. Particularly when they hold the answer to my questions!

As a result, when working with objects (aka Dictionaries in Python), I prefer not to have to parse a wall of text (even if it’s small like so:

my json is --> {'file_prefix': 'emm_leads_data', 'staging_schema': 'army_stage', 'stagi
ng_table': 'emm_leads_raw', 'has_header': False, 'write_mode': 'Append'}

With Javascript, I can use JSON.Stringify’s spacer argument to convert the wall of text into a formatted object:

console.log(`my json is --> ${JSON.stringify(myObj, null, 4)}`)
my json is --> {
    "file_prefix": "emm_leads_data",
    "has_header": false,
    "staging_schema": "army_stage",
    "staging_table": "emm_leads_raw",
    "write_mode": "Append"
}

Python has a similarly easy method for achieving this using the json dumps method¹ and passing in an indent argument:

def pretty_print_json(val):
  print(f"The pretty json is --> {json.dumps(val, indent=4)}")

Of course this can be simplified to:

def pretty_print_json(val):
  print(json.dumps(val, indent=4)})

And just like that, I can read my outputs again!

Footnotes

• ¹ There’s both a json.dump and json.dumps method. In this case we’re using dumps (with an s). For more on the differences, this PYnative article seems useful.