# \_cat JSON format returning text

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/-cat-json-format-returning-text/88152>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 3, 2017, 2:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/-cat-json-format-returning-text/88152 "2017-06-03T14:00:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dbroadhurst](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dbroadhurst/32/16321_2.png) [@dbroadhurst](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dbroadhurst)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2017, 2:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/-cat-json-format-returning-text/88152/1 "2017-06-03T14:00:13Z")

</div>

Docs claim I can use

```auto
curl 'localhost:9200/_cat/indices?format=json&pretty'

```

to get \_cat formatted as JSON but I'm still getting text.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dbroadhurst](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/dbroadhurst/32/16321_2.png) [@dbroadhurst](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dbroadhurst)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/-cat-json-format-returning-text/88152/2 "2017-06-03T14:23:22Z")

</div>

Pretty confusing but I tried some of the other formats which also didn't work and then suddenly YAML started to work and then JSON. Anyone else seen this issue?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/-cat-json-format-returning-text/88152/3 "2017-06-05T09:25:16Z")

</div>

Nope. If you can replicate it, please create an issue on Github!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2017, 9:25am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/-cat-json-format-returning-text/88152/4 "2017-07-03T09:25:23Z")

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