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PHP has JSON_PRETTY_PRINT option since 5.4.0 (release date 01-Mar-2012).

This should do the job:

$json = json_decode($string);
echo json_encode($json, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
See http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-encode.php

Note: Don't forget to echo "<pre>" before and </pre> after, if you're printing it in HTML ;)

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answered Nov 30 '12 at 4:27

petrkotek
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In PHP <5.4 replace JSON_PRETTY_PRINT with 128 – Nic Cottrell Aug 19 '14 at 13:36
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@NicCottrell doesn't work when i test it here sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/… – drzaus Aug 28 '14 at 5:15
    
@drzaus works for me there - I can see each key of JSON on separate line (the PHP version used on that site has even JSON_PRETTY_PRINT defined. – petrkotek Aug 28 '14 at 6:07
    
@beret ahh, I thought sharing it would retain the PHP setting -- change the php version to anything less than 5.4 and it should go back to "unformatted" – drzaus Aug 28 '14 at 13:29
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Thank you for the <pre>json</pre> tip! – GisMofx Feb 18 '16 at 4:05
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11
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Hmmm $array = json_decode($json, true); will make your string an array which is easy to print nicely with print_r($array, true);

But if you really want to prettify your json... Check this out

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answered Aug 17 '11 at 18:12

sg3s
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+1 for print_r – Michael Mior Aug 17 '11 at 19:35
    
@Michael Mior you should see my debugging die die(print('<pre>'.print_r($var, true).'</pre>')) it prints almost anything :p – sg3s Aug 17 '11 at 19:38
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I usually just view the source and go with var_dump, but whatever works :) – Michael Mior Aug 17 '11 at 21:09
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Here's a function to pretty up your json: pretty_json