How do I keep colors when piping "jq" output to "less"?

Question

I have a simple json file and if I pipe the output of "jq" into "less", the colors get removed.

This works:

# yey, lots of colors
jq "." /tmp/myfile.json

This doesn't work:

# ugly output :( , no colors
jq "." /tmp/myfile.json | less -R

Any ideas on how to make "less" keep the colors?

None

Did you try jq -C? – Traci

Why would I, if I see colored output by default? – None

Because, as the answer added later below points out, jq does not by default add color output to a pipe. – Traci

Answer 1

It is jq that is suppressing the colours. From the man page

       o   --color-output / -C and --monochrome-output / -M:

           By default, jq outputs colored JSON if writing to a terminal.
You can force it to produce color even if writing to a pipe or a file
using -C, and disable color with -M

So, just use:

jq -C "." /tmp/myfile.json | less -R

and it will output colours regardless. The less command doesn't need the -R switch on my version, but I believe it does on older versions. If you see the ESC... codes, you will need that switch.

Fern

Thanks very much, exactly what's needed. jq -C "." /tmp/myfile.json | less -R – None

That manpage first sentence is unclear, it would be more clear for the doc to say "By default, jq outputs colored JSON only if writing to a terminal, not a pipe or file" – Cohosh