ArangoDB Shell Output

The ArangoDB shell will print the output of the last evaluated expression by default:

arangosh> 42 * 23
966

In order to prevent printing the result of the last evaluated expression, the expression result can be captured in a variable, e.g.

arangosh> var calculationResult = 42 * 23

There is also the print function to explicitly print out values in the ArangoDB shell:

arangosh> print({ a: "123", b: [1,2,3], c: "test" });
{ 
  "a" : "123", 
  "b" : [ 
    1, 
    2, 
    3 
  ], 
  "c" : "test" 
}

arangosh> print({ a: "123", b: [1,2,3], c: "test" });

show execution results

By default, the ArangoDB shell uses a pretty printer when JSON documents are printed. This ensures documents are printed in a human-readable way:

arangosh> db._create("five")
[ArangoCollection 40848, "five" (type document, status loaded)]
arangosh> for (i = 0; i < 5; i++) db.five.save({value:i})
arangosh> db.five.toArray()
[ 
  { 
    "_key" : "40862", 
    "_id" : "five/40862", 
    "_rev" : "_WQ47pVm--_", 
    "value" : 3 
  }, 
  { 
    "_key" : "40865", 
    "_id" : "five/40865", 
    "_rev" : "_WQ47pVm--B", 
    "value" : 4 
  }, 
  { 
    "_key" : "40859", 
    "_id" : "five/40859", 
    "_rev" : "_WQ47pVi--D", 
    "value" : 2 
  }, 
  { 
    "_key" : "40852", 
    "_id" : "five/40852", 
    "_rev" : "_WQ47pVi--_", 
    "value" : 0 
  }, 
  { 
    "_key" : "40856", 
    "_id" : "five/40856", 
    "_rev" : "_WQ47pVi--B", 
    "value" : 1 
  } 
]

arangosh> db._create("five")
arangosh> for (i = 0; i < 5; i++) db.five.save({value:i})
arangosh> db.five.toArray()

show execution results

While the pretty-printer produces nice looking results, it will need a lot of screen space for each document. Sometimes a more dense output might be better. In this case, the pretty printer can be turned off using the command stop_pretty_print().

To turn on pretty printing again, use the start_pretty_print() command.