dig-pretty
Make dig's output prettier. A very basic Python script that reformats the
YAML output of dig into a more human-readable format. Requires a relatively new
version of dig (new enough to support the +yaml option).
Mostly intended as a proof of concept to show that dig could have a more
human-friendly output format, because I don't know enough C to try to
contribute a different output format to dig.
installation
You'll need Python 3 and pyyaml installed.
pip install pyyaml
Then put it in your PATH somewhere
usage
You can pass any argument to it that dig supports. It'll just pass all the options through.
dig-pretty example.com
dig-pretty +norecurse example.com
dig-pretty @8.8.8.8 example.com
example output
$ dig-pretty example.com
Received response from 192.168.1.1:53 (UDP), 56 bytes in 12ms
HEADER:
status: NOERROR
opcode: QUERY
id: 61335
flags: qr rd ra
records: QUESTION: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
EDNS: version: 0, flags: None, udp: 4096
QUESTION SECTION:
example.com. IN A
ANSWER SECTION:
example.com. 81459 IN A 93.184.216.34
Compare this to the dig output for the same query:
$ dig example.com
; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> +all example.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 5151
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;example.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
example.com. 83385 A 93.184.216.34
;; Query time: 57 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.1#53(192.168.1.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Jul 30 14:22:44 EDT 2023
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 56
(dig-pretty leaves out the query timing information and message size because
I've never used that information and it's not part of the DNS record itself)
why not dog?
The goal of dig-pretty is show that you can have the power of dig (all of
the same options, and all of the same details in the output), but clearer
formatting.
Tools like dog or
doggo are great but they don't support all
the options dig does, like +norecurse.
I think older tools like dig deserve nice formatting too :)
contributing
I don't necessarily plan to maintain this long term or add a lot of features but bug fixes are welcome!