Output formats

Every list command in the fleet renders through one formatter, so the same flags work everywhere. Wire your commands through it as you add them, and this page describes what users get. Pick a format with -o, or let douban choose: a table when writing to a terminal, JSONL when piped.

Formats

douban <command> -o table     # a colorful, rounded-border grid for reading
douban <command> -o markdown  # a GitHub pipe table to paste into docs
douban <command> -o jsonl     # one JSON object per line, for piping
douban <command> -o json      # a single JSON array
douban <command> -o csv       # spreadsheet friendly
douban <command> -o tsv       # tab-separated
douban <command> -o url       # just the URL column
douban <command> -o raw       # the underlying bytes, unformatted

Format	Best for
table	Reading on a terminal (color, sized to your window)
markdown	Pasting into a README, issue, or pull request
jsonl	Piping into another tool, one object at a time
json	Loading a whole result as an array
csv / tsv	Spreadsheets and quick column math
url	Feeding URLs into other commands
raw	The unformatted bytes (response bodies, file contents)

Color

On a terminal the table draws a colored header and dimmed borders, and json and jsonl are syntax highlighted. Color switches off the moment output is not a terminal, so a pipe stays plain and parseable. Control it with --color:

douban <command> --color auto    # color a terminal, plain when piped (default)
douban <command> --color always  # force color on, e.g. piping into a pager
douban <command> --color never   # no color, ever

The NO_COLOR environment variable is honored: when it is set, auto stays plain. A wide table is shrunk to fit your terminal; set COLUMNS to override the width it targets.

Narrowing columns

Keep only the fields you want:

douban <command> --fields id,title,url

--no-header drops the header row in table and csv output, which helps when a downstream tool expects bare rows.

Templating rows

For full control over each line, apply a Go text/template. Fields are the JSON keys, capitalised:

douban <command> --template '{{.URL}} {{.Title}}'

Why auto-detection helps

Because the default adapts to the destination, the same command reads well by hand and parses cleanly in a pipe:

douban <command>            # a table, because this is a terminal
douban <command> | wc -l    # JSONL, because this is a pipe

You only reach for -o when you want something other than that default.