Kibana: Make triple quoting output in console configurable

[timroes]

Currently the console reformats output, to use triple quoted strings if a value contains multiple quotes in them, e.g. the output

{
  "foo": "a string \"with\" quotes"
}

would be reformated to:

{
  "foo": """a string "with" quotes"
}

This is not valid JSON anymore and makes it hard to copy over the output from console somewhere else. This change was introduced with #9433.

We should have at least an setting in Console to turn of that reformatting to invalid JSON, since this is causing trouble to users (see forums).

[matthewnunez]

@timroes is there any progress on this issue? I am having trouble finding a solution. Thanks.

[RexValkering]

For anyone else struggling with this issue, I've created a small Python script to convert the faulty JSON to correct JSON, until the issue is resolved. This also works in cases where strings span multiple lines.

"""Correct multiline string problems in a JSON file.

Kibana output uses triple quotes to format multiline strings. Unfortunately,
this isn't valid JSON anymore. This scripts reads a JSON file line by line and
outputs a valid JSON with correct quote usage.
"""

def convert(input_filename, output_filename):

    multiline = False
    buff = ''
    target = open(output_filename, 'w')

    def write_buffer(buff):
        """Write the buffer to file

        Some quotes are escaped, some are not. Ensure all quotes are escaped
        only once and escape all newlines.
        """
        buff = buff.replace('\\"', '\"').replace('\"', '\\"').replace('\n', '\\n')
        target.write('"{}"'.format(buff))

    try:
        for line in open(input_filename):

            # In normal mode, search for triple quotes.
            if not multiline:
                index = line.find('"""')

                # If triple quotes were found, build a buffer.
                if index != -1:
                    # Write the part before triple quotes to file.
                    target.write(line[:index])

                    # Check if the string is ended on the same line.
                    last_index = line.find('"""', index + 3)
                    if last_index != -1:
                        # String ended on same line, so immediately convert and
                        # write buffer to file.
                        buff = line[index + 3:last_index]
                        write_buffer(buff)
                        buff = ''

                        # Write part after string to file.
                        target.write(line[last_index + 3:])
                    else:
                        # This is part of a multiline string, so write string
                        # to a buffer
                        multiline = True
                        buff = line[index + 3:]
                else:
                    # Nothing special. Write line to file.
                    target.write(line)
            else:
                index = line.find('"""')

                # Check if multiline section is terminated
                if index != -1:

                    # Write buffer to file
                    buff += line[:index]
                    write_buffer(buff)
                    buff = ''

                    # Write rest to file
                    target.write(line[index + 3:])
                    multiline = False
                # Write line to buffer
                else:
                    buff += line

    except:
        target.close()
        raise

    target.close()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import argparse
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument('input_filename')
    parser.add_argument('output_filename')
    args = parser.parse_args()
    convert(args.input_filename, args.output_filename)

[timroes]

cc @elastic/kibana-management (for your awareness of that issue)

[nreese]

Just ran into this issue. Until the issue is resolved you can use Chrome's developer tools as a work around.

Open the network tab and right click on the proxy request (this is the elasticsearch request that gets proxied through Kibana). Select copy and then copy response. This will copy the response as valid json.

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/es-ui