jsonwatch — like watch -d but for JSON

jsonwatch is a command line utility with which you can track changes in JSON data delivered by a shell command or a web (HTTP/HTTPS) API. jsonwatch requests data from the designated source repeatedly at a set interval and displays the differences when the data changes. It is similar but not isomorphic in its behavior to how watch(1) with the -d switch works for plain-text data.

jsonwatch requires Python 2.7 or 3.x. It has been tested on Debian 7, Ubuntu 12.04 and Fedora 20.

Installation

The following instructions cover installing jsonwatch with Python 2.7.

1. Install Setuptools for Python. On Debian and Ubuntu you can do this with

sudo apt-get install python-setuptools

On Fedora do

su -
yum install python-setuptools

2. Clone the repository then run

sudo python setup.py install

The command jsonwatch will be installed.

Use examples

Commands

Testing jsonwatch.

$ jsonwatch -n 1 -c "echo '{ \"filename\": \"'\$(mktemp -u)'\"}'"

{
    "filename": "/tmp/tmp.ZYFQ5RwGN5"
}
2014-03-16T22:40:08.130170 .filename: /tmp/tmp.ZYFQ5RwGN5 -> /tmp/tmp.Pi0WXp2Aoj
2014-03-16T22:40:09.133995 .filename: /tmp/tmp.Pi0WXp2Aoj -> /tmp/tmp.2U181cBL2L
2014-03-16T22:40:10.137640 .filename: /tmp/tmp.2U181cBL2L -> /tmp/tmp.i5sGwYig4S
2014-03-16T22:40:11.141320 .filename: /tmp/tmp.i5sGwYig4S -> /tmp/tmp.Sv0s60LuoT
2014-03-16T22:40:12.144990 .filename: /tmp/tmp.Sv0s60LuoT -> /tmp/tmp.skSIruBLfQ

Cryptocurrency daemon information (including balance changes).

$ jsonwatch --no-initial-values -c "dogecoind getinfo"

2014-03-18T14:16:57.855226 .blocks: 145779 -> 145780
2014-03-18T14:17:07.922137
    .blocks: 145780 -> 145781
    .difficulty: 1316.42722979 -> 1178.89009968
2014-03-18T14:19:13.921734 .connections: 8 -> 7
2014-03-18T14:19:39.128119 .connections: 7 -> 8

URLs

Weather tracking.

$ jsonwatch -u http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather\?q\=Kiev,ua --no-initial-values -n 300

2014-03-17T23:06:19.073790
    + .rain.1h: 0.76
    - .rain.3h: 0.5
    .dt: 1395086402 -> 1395089402
    .main.temp: 279.07 -> 278.66
    .main.temp_max: 279.82 -> 280.15
    .main.temp_min: 277.95 -> 276.05
    .sys.message: 0.0353 -> 0.0083

Geolocation. (Try this on a mobile device.)

$ jsonwatch -u http://freegeoip.net/json/ --no-initial-values -n 300

License

jsonwatch is distributed under the MIT license. See the file LICENSE for details.