beautify()

Pretty-print JSON with a configurable indent width.

Signature

php

JsonFast::beautify(
    string $json,
    ?int $indent = 4,
    ?int $output = OUTPUT_ARRAY
): mixed

Name	Type	Default	Description
`$json`	`string`	—	Valid JSON text
`$indent`	`?int`	`4`	Spaces per indent level
`$output`	`?int`	`OUTPUT_ARRAY`	Output mode

Depends on $output:

Mode	Result
`OUTPUT_ARRAY`	Parsed PHP structure (re-serialized internally with formatting)
`OUTPUT_STRING`	Formatted JSON string with the requested indent
`OUTPUT_OBJECT`	`stdClass` for objects, arrays for JSON arrays

TIP

OUTPUT_STRING on beautify() is the only case where string output keeps custom indentation. Other methods return compact JSON strings.

Formatted string for files or logs:

php

$pretty = JsonFast::beautify($json, indent: 2, output: JsonFast::OUTPUT_STRING);
file_put_contents('config.json', $pretty);

Tab-width style (8 spaces):

php

echo JsonFast::beautify($compact, indent: 8, output: JsonFast::OUTPUT_STRING);

Parse and work with data:

php

$data = JsonFast::beautify($json); // array, default output