Question

The JSON in question is being read in from a RESTful service, and I would like to print it out (to console, although in .gsp would be fine also) for debugging purposes. Groovy 1.3.7 (current as of August 2011) uses Groovy 1.7.8 (which does not have the JsonOutput introduced in 1.8)

Note I am currently reading it in like this, which I am not convinced is the ‘grooviest or grail-est’ way to do it – perhaps I could take advantage of the converters and pretty printing if done differently? Code sample would be appreciated.

   def serviceURL = new URL(theURL)
   def json = new JSONObject(serviceURL.text)
   println json

Answer 1

You can pretty print JSON with the toString(int indentFactor) method. Example:

def json = new JSONObject()
json.put('foo', 'bar')
json.put('blat', 'greep')
println json
===>{"foo":"bar","blat","greep"}
println json.toString(4)
===>{
    "foo": "bar",
    "blat": "greep"
}