Output formats

Every command that emits records renders through the same formatter. Pick a format with --output (or -o), or let reddit choose: a table when writing to a terminal, JSONL when piped.

Formats

reddit posts golang -o table   # aligned columns for reading
reddit posts golang -o jsonl   # one JSON object per line, for piping
reddit posts golang -o json    # a single JSON array
reddit posts golang -o csv     # spreadsheet friendly
reddit posts golang -o tsv     # tab-separated
reddit posts golang -o url     # just the URL of each row
reddit posts golang -o raw     # the underlying bytes, unformatted

Format	Best for
table	Reading on a terminal
jsonl	Piping into another tool, one object at a time
json	Loading a whole result as an array
csv / tsv	Spreadsheets and quick column math
url	Feeding URLs into other commands
raw	The unformatted bytes

Narrowing columns

Keep only the fields you want:

reddit posts golang --fields title,score,num_comments
reddit comments 1abc23 --fields author,depth,body

--no-header drops the header row in table, csv, and tsv output, which is handy when a downstream tool expects bare rows.

Templating rows

For full control over each line, apply a Go text/template. The fields are the record's keys:

reddit posts golang --template '{{.title}} ({{.score}})'
reddit comments 1abc23 --template '{{.author}}	{{.body}}'

Piping

Because the default adapts to the destination, the same command reads well by hand and parses cleanly in a pipe:

reddit posts golang                  # a table, because this is a terminal
reddit posts golang | jq -r .url     # JSONL, because this is a pipe

--limit (or -n) caps the number of rows; 0 means all (up to one page, unless --pages walks more).

Exit codes for scripting

reddit returns a stable exit code so a script can branch on the outcome:

Code	Meaning
0	OK
1	Error
2	Usage error
3	No data (nothing matched)
4	Partial (some items failed)
5	Blocked (rate-limited or a block page)

For example, treat a block differently from a real failure:

reddit posts golang -o json > golang.json
case $? in
  0) echo "got it" ;;
  5) echo "blocked, slow down or pass --cookies" ;;
  *) echo "failed" ;;
esac

See troubleshooting for what to do about exit 5 and exit 3.