Redis [Proposal] redis-cli support json output so that users/libraries don't need to parse text output

For example, if some library doesn't implement parsing one command 's output, like cluster nodes, users need to parse themselves.

Avoid reinventing the wheel of parsing output text

If redis-cli support an option like --json-out so that all commands are wrapped to a JSON, libraries don't need to implement the parsing themself.

What they need is to define model object, and decode to it, return to the user.

Comment From: atlas-comstock

@antirez Any ideas?Thanks

Comment From: bjsmiley

Looks like this can be closed

➜ redis-cli --help | grep json
  --json             Output in JSON format (default RESP3, use -2 if you want to use with RESP2).
  --quoted-json      Same as --json, but produce ASCII-safe quoted strings, not Unicode.

Comment From: ginolegigot

Is it really working ? i tried these options on redis 7.4, with redis-cli cluster nodes, it did not produce a json reply

Comment From: sundb

@ginolegigot can you give the details about how you using.

Comment From: ginolegigot

sure thanks for your reply:

redis-cli --tls --cacert /path/to/ca -c -h NodeFQDN --user xxxx --pass xxxx --json cluster nodes

also tried --json right after redis-cli or --quoted-json

Comment From: sundb

@ginolegigot https://redis.io/docs/latest/commands/cluster-nodes/

RESP2/RESP3 Reply
[Bulk string reply](https://redis.io/docs/latest/develop/reference/protocol-spec#bulk-strings): the serialized cluster configuration.

the reply of CLUSTER NODES is string, not array.

Comment From: ginolegigot

Yes and would it be possible to jsonify this string output ? would be much easier to deal with, for example using the output in ansible scripts. maybe should i make a proper issue for it ? The global underlying question/need here being, is it possible to jsonify every redis-cli output for better handling of out puts ?

Comment From: sundb

Yes and would it be possible to jsonify this string output ?

but how can we jsonify a string? the root layer of json must be [] or {}.

would be much easier to deal with, for example using the output in ansible scripts.

i recommend to reprocess the output of a string in your script.

Comment From: ginolegigot

Thanks for your reply. i guess redis-cli is calling some redis api to get information, maybe you could implement in redis cli, a jsonifying of cluster nodes api for example (or any others api which returns a string instead of an array), like if we pass --json it gives something from:

e73319f5dffzfzefzzf93adfb24cf11db1149656 xxxxxxxxxxxxx:6379@16379 slave 24dd68e643ed8xxdgdegeghguurrxhrhre79ee2c 0 1724212339738 3 connected
422f80317abezfzfbjra97c8d59bfc8e1563f896 xxxxxxxxxxxxx:6379@16379 slave d661711dzdzgrgeyeeteteytruiturhk468329a1 0 1724931311000 2 connected
d661711f5fzfzjhhezg107dc114d27ce468329a1 xxxxxxxxxxxxx:6379@16379 master - 0 1724961269000 2 connected 5461-10922

to:

[
{
  "node_id": "e73319f5dffzfzefzzf93adfb24cf11db1149656",
  "node_ip": "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,
  "cluster_role": "slave"
},
{
  "node_id": "422f80317abezfzfbjra97c8d59bfc8e1563f89",
  "node_ip": "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,
  "cluster_role": "slave"
},
{
  "node_id": "d661711f5fzfzjhhezg107dc114d27ce468329a1",
  "node_ip": "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,
  "cluster_role": "master"
}
]

Like elasticsearch (among others), an example of a response from listing the nodes in elasticsearch:

  {
    "ip": "xx.xx.xx.xxx",
    "heap.percent": "36",
    "ram.percent": "75",
    "cpu": "0",
    "load_1m": "0.05",
    "load_5m": "0.07",
    "load_15m": "0.08",
    "node.role": "cdffsfsfstw",
    "master": "-",
    "name": "yolo1"
  },
  {
    "ip": "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx",
    "heap.percent": "47",
    "ram.percent": "72",
    "cpu": "0",
    "load_1m": "0.01",
    "load_5m": "0.05",
    "load_15m": "0.04",
    "node.role": "cdfdfdffstw",
    "master": "-",
    "name": "yolo2"
  }

In elasticsearch when you set up a cluster with ansible it's really handy to get the features of nodes and rearrange the cluster if needed etc... I dont know your code archiecture and how much it would be time consuming to add this feature but to administrate redis cluster it would be ready handy

Comment From: sundb

@ginolegigot why not using cluster shards? i think it's what you want. If we want cluster nodes to support output json, we have to change its reply format to array or map instead of string.