cursor.pretty()

Definition

• cursor.pretty()

mongo Shell Method

This page documents the mongo shell method, and doesnot refer to the MongoDB Node.js driver (or any other driver)method. For corresponding MongoDB driver API, refer to your specificMongoDB driver documentation instead.

Configures the cursor to display results in an easy-to-read format.

The pretty() method has the following prototype form:

db.collection.find(<query>).pretty()

Examples

Consider the following document:

db.books.save({
    "_id" : ObjectId("54f612b6029b47909a90ce8d"),
    "title" : "A Tale of Two Cities",
    "text" : "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...",
    "authorship" : "Charles Dickens"})

By default, db.collection.find() returns data in a dense format:

db.books.find()
{ "_id" : ObjectId("54f612b6029b47909a90ce8d"), "title" : "A Tale of Two Cities", "text" : "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...", "authorship" : "Charles Dickens" }

By using cursor.pretty() you can set the cursor to return data in aformat that is easier for humans to parse:

db.books.find().pretty()
{
    "_id" : ObjectId("54f612b6029b47909a90ce8d"),
    "title" : "A Tale of Two Cities",
    "text" : "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...",
    "authorship" : "Charles Dickens"
}