How to improve listings display of JSON files?
Here's one possibility for the colon, comma, braces, square brackets, and numbers, using the literate
key:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{bera}% optional: just to have a nice mono-spaced font
\usepackage{listings}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\colorlet{punct}{red!60!black}
\definecolor{background}{HTML}{EEEEEE}
\definecolor{delim}{RGB}{20,105,176}
\colorlet{numb}{magenta!60!black}
\lstdefinelanguage{json}{
basicstyle=\normalfont\ttfamily,
numbers=left,
numberstyle=\scriptsize,
stepnumber=1,
numbersep=8pt,
showstringspaces=false,
breaklines=true,
frame=lines,
backgroundcolor=\color{background},
literate=
*{0}{{{\color{numb}0}}}{1}
{1}{{{\color{numb}1}}}{1}
{2}{{{\color{numb}2}}}{1}
{3}{{{\color{numb}3}}}{1}
{4}{{{\color{numb}4}}}{1}
{5}{{{\color{numb}5}}}{1}
{6}{{{\color{numb}6}}}{1}
{7}{{{\color{numb}7}}}{1}
{8}{{{\color{numb}8}}}{1}
{9}{{{\color{numb}9}}}{1}
{:}{{{\color{punct}{:}}}}{1}
{,}{{{\color{punct}{,}}}}{1}
{\{}{{{\color{delim}{\{}}}}{1}
{\}}{{{\color{delim}{\}}}}}{1}
{[}{{{\color{delim}{[}}}}{1}
{]}{{{\color{delim}{]}}}}{1},
}
\begin{document}
\begin{lstlisting}[language=json,firstnumber=1]
{"menu": {
"id": "file",
"value": "File",
"popup": {
"menuitem": [
{"value": "New", "onclick": "CreateNewDoc()"},
{"value": "Open", "onclick": "OpenDoc()"},
{"value": "Close", "onclick": "CloseDoc()"}
]
}
}}
0123456789
\end{lstlisting}
\end{document}
Here is an alternate solution which isn't always accurate but if your JSON is formatted "the usual way" it gives quite nice results and colors attributes different from values.
\usepackage{bera}% optional: just to have a nice mono-spaced font
\usepackage{listings}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{eclipseStrings}{RGB}{42,0.0,255}
\definecolor{eclipseKeywords}{RGB}{127,0,85}
\colorlet{numb}{magenta!60!black}
\lstdefinelanguage{json}{
basicstyle=\normalfont\ttfamily,
commentstyle=\color{eclipseStrings}, % style of comment
stringstyle=\color{eclipseKeywords}, % style of strings
numbers=left,
numberstyle=\scriptsize,
stepnumber=1,
numbersep=8pt,
showstringspaces=false,
breaklines=true,
frame=lines,
backgroundcolor=\color{gray}, %only if you like
string=[s]{"}{"},
comment=[l]{:\ "},
morecomment=[l]{:"},
literate=
*{0}{{{\color{numb}0}}}{1}
{1}{{{\color{numb}1}}}{1}
{2}{{{\color{numb}2}}}{1}
{3}{{{\color{numb}3}}}{1}
{4}{{{\color{numb}4}}}{1}
{5}{{{\color{numb}5}}}{1}
{6}{{{\color{numb}6}}}{1}
{7}{{{\color{numb}7}}}{1}
{8}{{{\color{numb}8}}}{1}
{9}{{{\color{numb}9}}}{1}
}