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cursor.pretty()

Definition

cursor.pretty()

Important

mongosh Method

This page documents a mongosh method. This is not the documentation for a language-specific driver such as Node.js.

For MongoDB API drivers, refer to the language-specific :driver:`MongoDB driver documentation </>`.

For the legacy mongo shell documentation, refer to the documentation for the corresponding MongoDB Server release:

Configures the cursor to display results in a format that is easy to read.

The pretty() method has the following prototype form:

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

Behavior

The pretty() method:

  • Does not change the output format in mongosh.
  • Changes the output format in the legacy mongo shell.

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 a format that is easier to read:

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"
}