From 995cd0dc32ff630fa6f08fceeb5e4b7145941783 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Nick Craig-Wood <nick@craig-wood.com>
Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 18:07:41 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] backend: add --json flag to always output JSON

---
 cmd/backend/backend.go | 26 ++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/cmd/backend/backend.go b/cmd/backend/backend.go
index 3e8983bff..2d32ff447 100644
--- a/cmd/backend/backend.go
+++ b/cmd/backend/backend.go
@@ -18,12 +18,14 @@ import (
 
 var (
 	options []string
+	useJSON bool
 )
 
 func init() {
 	cmd.Root.AddCommand(commandDefinition)
 	cmdFlags := commandDefinition.Flags()
 	flags.StringArrayVarP(cmdFlags, &options, "option", "o", options, "Option in the form name=value or name.")
+	flags.BoolVarP(cmdFlags, &useJSON, "json", "", useJSON, "Always output in JSON format.")
 }
 
 var commandDefinition = &cobra.Command{
@@ -97,15 +99,23 @@ Note to run these commands on a running backend then see
 
 			}
 			// Output the result
-			switch x := out.(type) {
-			case nil:
-			case string:
-				fmt.Println(out)
-			case []string:
-				for _, line := range x {
-					fmt.Println(line)
+			writeJSON := false
+			if useJSON {
+				writeJSON = true
+			} else {
+				switch x := out.(type) {
+				case nil:
+				case string:
+					fmt.Println(out)
+				case []string:
+					for _, line := range x {
+						fmt.Println(line)
+					}
+				default:
+					writeJSON = true
 				}
-			default:
+			}
+			if writeJSON {
 				// Write indented JSON to the output
 				enc := json.NewEncoder(os.Stdout)
 				enc.SetIndent("", "\t")