Multiple output formatting

[jerbia]

Currently batten output format is human readable text with some nice green and red coloring.
We would like to add an option for machine readable formats, like JSON, which can be used for integrations with server spec or other continuous integration systems.

The output format type should be specified in the batten check command line parameters.
If missing, the default human readable output format should be used.

[petersellars]

@jerbia I am happy to help with this - I made a start on a JSON machine readable experiment here (https://github.com/petersellars/batten) as part of #dockerhackday. I am new to Go, so learning as I go to some extent so would appreciate any code review/feedback.

My initial thought was to create a JSON representation and add a '--machine-readable' flag to generate this either as a file or instead of the output currently generated.

Happy to discuss - will work on the JSON representation and let you know how I go.

[jandre]

This would be awesome @petersellars!

Maybe instead of --machine-readable, you could do a flag like:

 --output-format=[text|json|...]  

This way you could supply different report formats (like html or yaml or whatever) in the future.

[jerbia]

Hi @petersellars! Welcome on board!

I'll be happy to review your code and provide feedback. You can submit a pull request when you are done and we can go over your changes.

As for the parameter name - I agree with @jandre, using "--output-format" will allow
additional formats in the future.

Thanks for contributing!

Amir

[petersellars]

Thanks @jandre and @jerbia - that flag makes sense to me. Had considered yaml as well as json when starting to look at this. I shall continue with the initial json implementation and then submit for review - expect plenty of feedback as new to Go - still learning the Go idioms.