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Comment by artemonster | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how world would look like if all standard unix tools gave two outputs: human readable and structured, json-like.

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You don't need to wonder, because jc is a filter that does just that!

https://kellyjonbrazil.github.io/jc/

It even claims to parse ls output correctly (see caveat): https://kellyjonbrazil.github.io/jc/docs/parsers/ls

> >>> import jc.parsers.dig

I think "jc" stands for "jesus christ!" because I just exclaimed that out loud thinking about the amount of time I've wasted trying to parse dig outputs, or something similar. Spent a nontrivial amount of time looking for lightweight tools to convert the typical "fwf" of coreutils style programs.

Definitely running "pipx install jc" immediately (pipx is great for managing python-based executable programs, avoid the mess of venvs).

Perhaps take git as an example instead, with its plumbing and porcelain commands.

They have historically been easier to keep backwards compatibility with than the dict-like structures of json.

Then it would be PowerShell.

But with shorter command names, and gnomic short options.

No. Powershell is a whole new CLI user land as well as a shell. If you want something that’s compatible with POSIX but still has smart pipelines and native support for JSON then you’re better off with Elvish or Murex as shells.

I'd recommend to take a look at https://www.nushell.sh/ which has structured output, but displays it neatly when printing to the terminal.

FreeBSD is trying for something like that.

https://libxo.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

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