How to prettify the JSON output in PostgreSQL®

- 2 minutes read - 340 words

PostgreSQL® offers two types of data types to handle JSON data, JSON and JSONB, you can use the function json_pretty (jsonb_pretty for JSONB) to prettify the output.

NOTE: To review the differences between JSON and JSONB check out the related article.

NOTE: more info is available in the PostgreSQL JSON functions documentation page

 

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The dataset

The dataset is the following:

{
    "id": 778,
    "shop": "Luigis Pizza",
    "name": "Edward Olson",
    "phoneNumbers":
        ["(935)503-3765x4154","(935)12345"],
    "address": "Unit 9398 Box 2056\nDPO AP 24022",
    "image": null,
    "pizzas": [
        {
            "pizzaName": "Salami",
            "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
        },
        {
            "pizzaName": "Margherita",
            "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
        }
    ]
}
Check out the description of the fields The following examples use a pizza order dataset with an order having:
  • id: 778
  • shop: “Luigis Pizza”
  • name: “Edward Olson”
  • phoneNumbers:["(935)503-3765x4154","(935)12345"]
  • address: “Unit 9398 Box 2056\nDPO AP 24022”
  • image: null
  • and two pizzas contained in the pizzas item:
[
    {
        "pizzaName": "Salami",
        "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
    },
    {
        "pizzaName": "Margherita",
        "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
    }
]
If you want to reproduce the examples, check how to recreate the dataset

It can be recreated with the following script:

create table test(id serial, json_data jsonb);

insert into test(json_data) values (
'{
    "id": 778,
    "shop": "Luigis Pizza",
    "name": "Edward Olson",
    "phoneNumbers":
        ["(935)503-3765x4154","(935)12345"],
    "address": "Unit 9398 Box 2056\nDPO AP 24022",
    "image": null,
    "pizzas": [
        {
            "pizzaName": "Salami",
            "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
        },
        {
            "pizzaName": "Margherita",
            "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
        }
    ]
}');

Prettify the JSON output with the json_pretty function

The pizzas array can be prettified using the json_pretty (jsonb_pretty since the column is defined as JSONB) function

select 
    jsonb_pretty(json_data->'pizzas') 
from test;

Result

            jsonb_pretty
------------------------------------
 [                                 +
     {                             +
         "pizzaName": "Salami",    +
         "additionalToppings": [   +
             "🥓",                 +
             "🌶️"                  +
         ]                         +
     },                            +
     {                             +
         "pizzaName": "Margherita",+
         "additionalToppings": [   +
             "🍌",                 +
             "🌶️",                 +
             "🍍"                  +
         ]                         +
     }                             +
 ]
(1 row)

Review all the JSON PostgreSQL use-cases listed in the main page