\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [September 14, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273 "2022-09-14T13:11:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/1 "2022-09-14T13:11:26Z")
I have the following code:
```julia
using Parameters
import Base.show
const BOLD = "\e[1m"
const RED = "\033[31;1m"
const GREEN = "\033[32;1m"
const NORMAL = "\e[0m"
@with_kw mutable struct ChargerResult
search_strings = String["No buffer space", "CAN1 Error"]
frequency = Int64[0, 0]
end
Base.show(io::IO, res::ChargerResult) = begin
println("\n\n", BOLD, "Charger log(s):\n", NORMAL)
for i in 1:length(res.frequency)
if res.frequency[i] == 0
println(io, GREEN, "Message: \"$(res.search_strings[i])\" not found!", NORMAL)
else
println(io, RED, "Message: \"$(res.search_strings[i])\" found $(res.frequency[i]) times!", NORMAL)
end
end
end
res = ChargerResult()
```
This allows me to print a struct of type ChargerResult with colors on the command line.
Now I also want to have a similar html representation of this struct.
How can I achieve that?
Can I write different show methods for console and for html representation?
---
**Author:**  [@digital\_carver](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/digital_carver)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 2:27pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/2 "2022-09-14T14:27:34Z")
You can pass a `MIME` type as the second argument to `show`. By default it’s `text/plain` i.e. plaintext, so your method above applies to plaintext console output. You can write a method for the `text/html` MIME type separately, like:
```julia
Base.show(io::IO, ::MIME"text/html", res::ChargerResult) = begin
println("
Charger log(s):
", NORMAL)
for i in 1:length(res.frequency)
if res.frequency[i] == 0
println(io, "Message: \"$(res.search_strings[i])\" not found!")
else
println(io, "Message: \"$(res.search_strings[i])\" found $(res.frequency[i]) times!")
end
end
end
```
(Untested, and sort of a direct translation of the commandline output version - you might want fancier/more idiomatic HTML in the actual code.)
---
**Author:**  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 2:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/3 "2022-09-14T14:45:58Z")
> [@ufechner7](#):
>
> ` println("\n\n", BOLD, "Charger log(s):\n", NORMAL)`
Separate from your question about HTML output, which was answered above (and is covered in the manual [section on pretty-printing](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/types/#man-custom-pretty-printing)), is there a reason you’re not using [`printstyled(io, s, bold=true)`](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/base/io-network/#Base.printstyled) here?
Even if you do need to print formatting codes directly for some reason in your `show`, you should first check [`get(io, :color, false)`](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/base/io-network/#Base.IOContext) to see whether the `io` stream supports the ANSI formatting escapes. The `printstyled` function will do this for you.
---
**Author:**  [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 2:53pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/4 "2022-09-14T14:53:11Z")
Thank you, I did not know the printstyled function…
---
**Author:**  [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 2:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/5 "2022-09-14T14:55:04Z")
Thank you! But how can I print the html version to a file or to a string after adding the new show method?
---
**Author:**  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/6 "2022-09-14T16:25:10Z")
> [@ufechner7](#):
>
> But how can I print the html version to a file or to a string after adding the new show method?
Call it? `show(io, "text/html", mystruct)`
---
**Author:**  [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/7 "2022-09-14T16:29:37Z")
The difference between print and show is still not clear to me… Does print also calls show in the end?
---
**Author:**  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/8 "2022-09-14T16:33:07Z")
> [@ufechner7](#):
>
> Does print also calls show in the end?
By default, yes, `print(io, x)` calls `show(io, x)`, the 2-argument `show`. However, there are some types for which it is different, e.g. for strings:
```julia
julia> show("foo\nbar")
"foo\nbar"
julia> print("foo\nbar")
foo
bar
```
This is explained in the [documentation for `Base.print`](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/base/io-network/#Base.print).
---
**Author:**  [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 4:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/9 "2022-09-14T16:42:46Z")
Thanks!
---
**Author:**  [@digital\_carver](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/digital_carver)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2022, 6:30pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-show-a-struct-in-html/87273/10 "2022-09-14T18:30:13Z")
There’s also this 2020 JuliaCon talk:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Fb5oNhhbc)
An abstract of the talk, with a link to the slides used, is at:
> **[JuliaCon 2020: display, show and print – how Julia's display system works |...](https://fredrikekre.se/posts/display-show-print/)**
>
> Abstract, slides and a recording from my JuliaCon 2020 presentation titled: display, show and print – how Julia's display system works