Dev Notes

Here’s how to add commands to Gedit to format JSON and XML documents.

1. Ensure that you have an up-to-date version of Python.  It’s included with nearly every Linux distribution.
2. Ensure that the External Tools plugin is installed
   1. Click Edit -> Preferences
   2. Select the Plugins tab
   3. Check the box next to External Tools
   4. Click Close
3. Add the Format JSON command
   1. Click Tools -> Manage External Tools…
   2. Click New (bottom left, looks like a piece of paper with a plus sign)
   3. Enter a name (Format JSON)
   4. Paste this text into the text window on the right
      

      Code block

      #! /usr/bin/env python
       
      import json
      import sys
       
      j = json.load(sys.stdin)
      print json.dumps(j, sort_keys=True, indent=2)

   5. Set Input to Current document
   6. Set Output to Replace current document
4. Add the Format XML command
   1. Install lxml (on Ubuntu, sudo apt-get install python-lxml)
      1. Python’s included XML modules either don’t support pretty printing or are buggy
   2. Create a new external tool configuration as above (Format XML)
   3. Paste this text into the text window on the right
      

      Code block

      #! /usr/bin/env python
       
      import sys
      import lxml.etree as etree
      import traceback
       
      result = ''
      for line in sys.stdin:
        result += line
      try:
        x = etree.fromstring(result)
        result = etree.tostring(x, pretty_print=True, xml_declaration=True, encoding=”UTF-8″)
      except:
        etype, evalue, etraceback = sys.exc_info()
        traceback.print_exception(etype, evalue, etraceback, file=sys.stderr)
      print result

   4. Set Input to Current document
   5. Set Output to Replace current document

Thanks to Diego Alcorta for improvements that preserve XML declarations and set encoding!