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@mayankmkh
Last active September 12, 2025 07:39
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Pretty Print Kotlin Data Class
fun Any.prettyPrint(): String {
var indentLevel = 0
val indentWidth = 4
fun padding() = "".padStart(indentLevel * indentWidth)
val toString = toString()
val stringBuilder = StringBuilder(toString.length)
var i = 0
while (i < toString.length) {
when (val char = toString[i]) {
'(', '[', '{' -> {
indentLevel++
stringBuilder.appendLine(char).append(padding())
}
')', ']', '}' -> {
indentLevel--
stringBuilder.appendLine().append(padding()).append(char)
}
',' -> {
stringBuilder.appendLine(char).append(padding())
// ignore space after comma as we have added a newline
val nextChar = toString.getOrElse(i + 1) { char }
if (nextChar == ' ') i++
}
else -> {
stringBuilder.append(char)
}
}
i++
}
return stringBuilder.toString()
}
@tim4dev

tim4dev commented Aug 24, 2023

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Awesome, thx!

@mayankmkh

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Author

That's great @odonckers ! Glad it helped. I remember implementing a custom serializer using Kotlinx serialization to achieve the same. It was hacky and dirty but sufficed my use case. This is much easier and can be useful in many places. Awesome work!

@eskatos

eskatos commented Jan 22, 2024

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FWIW, this fails to produce a pretty output if you have strings that contain the , character

@thought-police-000

thought-police-000 commented Jan 31, 2024

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I cut this back and cleaned it up a little, and added some kotliny goodness, to make it a little cleaner and easier to read.

fun Any.pretty() = toString().let { toString ->
    var indentLevel = 0
    val indentWidth = 4
    var i = 0
    fun padding() = "".padStart(indentLevel * indentWidth)
    buildString {
        var ignoreSpace = false
        toString.onEach { char ->
            when (char) {
                '(', '[', '{' -> {
                    indentLevel++
                    appendLine(char)
                    append(padding())
                }

                ')', ']', '}' -> {
                    indentLevel--
                    appendLine()
                    append(padding())
                    append(char)
                }

                ',' -> {
                    appendLine(char)
                    append(padding())
                    ignoreSpace = true
                }
                ' ' -> {
                    if (!ignoreSpace) append(char)
                    ignoreSpace = false
                }

                else -> append(char)
            }
        }
    }
}

@thought-police-000

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With this method I don't think there's any way to get around a string containing a closing bracket.

data class Fish(val message: String)

Fish("bobby),otherValue=fakeData").pretty()

@jisungbin

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@thought-police-000 Thanks for sharing your awesome code!

@marctatham

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love it.

@johannesrave

johannesrave commented Oct 7, 2024

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@thought-police-000 definitely love the buildString builder, i didn't know about that!

regarding the ): you could count the " as well in a "stringLevel" to decide whether one is still inside a string or to decrement the indentation level? adds complexity obviously :/

@teenriot

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@thought-police-000 I cleaned it up more, replaced "=" by " = " and ruined it again by packing the code :)

fun Any.toPrettyDebugString(indentWidth : Int = 4) = buildString {
    fun StringBuilder.indent(level : Int) = append("".padStart(level * indentWidth))
    var ignoreSpace = false
    var indentLevel = 0
    this@toPrettyDebugString.toString().onEach {
        when (it) {
            '(', '[', '{' -> appendLine(it).indent(++indentLevel)
            ')', ']', '}' -> appendLine().indent(--indentLevel).append(it)
            ','           -> appendLine(it).indent(indentLevel).also { ignoreSpace = true }
            ' '           -> if (ignoreSpace) ignoreSpace = false else append(it)
            '='           -> append(" = ")
            else          -> append(it)
        }
    }
}

@doanvu2000

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công đức vô lượng

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