yq/usage/output-format.md

---
description: Flags to control yaml and json output format
---

# Output format

These flags are available for all `yq` commands. 

## Color

By default, `yq` prints with colours if it detects a terminal. You can manully this by using either

The `--colors/-C`flag to force print with colors. 

The \``--no-colors/-M` flag to force print without colours

## Pretty Print

To print out idiomatic `yaml` use the `--prettyPrint/-P` flag. Note that this is shorthand for using the [style](broken-reference) operator `... style=""`

## Indent

Use the indent flag `--indent/-I` to control the number of spaces used for indentation. This also works for JSON output. The default value is 2. 

Note that lists are indented at the same level as the map key at indent level 2, but are more deeply indented at indent level 4 and greater. This is (currently) a quirk of the underlying [yaml parser](https://github.com/go-yaml/yaml/tree/v3).

Given:

```
apples:
  collection:
  - name: Green
  - name: Blue
  favourite: Pink Lady
```

Then:

```
yq e -I4 sample.yaml
```

Will print out:

```yaml
apples:
    collection:
      - name: Green
      - name: Blue
    favourite: Pink Lady
```

This also works with json

```
yq e -j -I4 sample.yaml
```

yields

```javascript
{
    "apples": {
        "collection": [
            {
                "name": "Green"
            },
            {
                "name": "Blue"
            }
        ],
        "favourite": "Pink Lady"
    }
}
```

## Unwrap scalars

By default scalar values are 'unwrapped', that is only their value is printed (except when outputting as JSON). To print out the node as-is, with the original formatting an any comments pass in `--unwrapScalar=false`

Given data.yml:

```yaml
a: "Things" # cool stuff
```

Then:

`yq e --unwrapScalar=false '.a' data.yml`

Will yield:

```yaml
"Things" # cool stuff
```

where as without setting the flag to false you would get:

```yaml
Things
```