try to json *nix tool output

ttjsoni

I know this is a really old topic: but maybe one way to address this problem is to have a general purpose tool that does a "pretty good" job of converting text-based output to structured output.

The reality is that most *nix tools output in a way that is designed for the human mind to "parse", so there is probably a detectable structure to the output that a smart tool [smarter than one I could create] could "guess" about a structure for the data and reformat it as json.  The key is getting the data into "some sort of json output", even if imperfect.  

For example, taking an output like this:

$ ifconfig 
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 06:41:73:c2:ca:15  
          inet addr:172.31.25.84  Bcast:172.31.31.255  Mask:255.255.240.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::441:73ff:fec2:ca15/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2323065 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2334632 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:951649848 (951.6 MB)  TX bytes:702385664 (702.3 MB)
          
and then running:

$ ifconfig | ttjsoni # "Try To JSON It"
{
   "eth0": {
       "Link": "encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 06:41:73:c2:ca:15  ",
       "inet": "addr:172.31.25.84  Bcast:172.31.31.255  Mask:255.255.240.0",
       ...
   }
}

or

$ ifconfig | ttjsoni # "Try To JSON It"
{
   "eth0": {
       [
          "Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 06:41:73:c2:ca:15  ",
          "inet addr:172.31.25.84  Bcast:172.31.31.255  Mask:255.255.240.0"
          ... 
       ]
   }
}

Perhaps ttjsoni has some sort of pluggable system so that authors could write parsers for apps depending on the output?

Or maybe some sort of aggressiveness setting the user could pass in.  So that ifconfig command could be as simple as arrays of lines or as complex as deeply nested map's of data.

Again, to me the key is getting it into json in a repeatable way.  Once it is json i can use 'jq' to parse arbitrary structures and get whatever is needed out:

$ ifconfig | ttjsoni | jq '.inet.addr[0]'
172.31.25.84

Any chance a tool like this, or similar to this, exists?