Java Json

An open source interactive JSON viewer for the terminal. Includes useful features like folding, sort, multiple cursors, groupby, JSONL support, and more. Watch the demo below for a taste.

Available features:

• parse and display JSON files or JSONL files
• folding
• pinning (pinned rows will be visible even within a folded region)
• multicursor
• time annotation (convert from large number of seconds to hours or days)
• color preview (256 colors, if the terminal supports it)
• scrolling
• text search
• sorting
• groupby
• help screen showing the supported keys (press 'h' or '?')
• shift-Z to undo union, sort, or aggregation
• support for Unicode and CJK scripts
• light or dark color options ("themes")

Missing features:

• support of right-to-left scripts

Installation

To install, grab both the jar and the jj.sh files from the latest release at this link: https://github.com/jean-philippe-martin/JavaJson/releases/latest

You can then run the program with ./jj.sh <your JSON file>. I recommend putting jj.sh and the jar file in your PATH.

You can download example JSON files from https://github.com/jean-philippe-martin/JavaJson/tree/main/testdata

The program will work even with old versions of Java. If you don't already have Java on your computer, I recommend downloading a recent version of OpenJDK.

On MacOS, the command is:

brew install openjdk

You can also download it directly online.

Getting started

Starting JavaJson with a demo file will look something like this:

./jj testdata/demo.json	

Then you can use the arrow keys to navigate, H for help, and M to open the main menu.

The file can be in JSON or JSONL format (JSONL = each individual line is valid JSON).

You can add --theme light or --theme dark to choose colors that fit with a light or dark background in your terminal. Or even --theme bw for simple black-on-white text.

Documentation

For more information, read the documentation on this page.