jq Manual
A jq program is a “filter”: it takes an input, and produces an
output. There are a lot of builtin filters for extracting a
particular field of an object, or converting a number to a string,
or various other standard tasks.
Filters can be combined in various ways – you can pipe the
output of one filter into another filter, or collect the output of
a filter into an array.
Some filters produce multiple results, for instance there’s one
that produces all the elements of its input array. Piping that
filter into a second runs the second filter for each element of the
array. Generally, things that would be done with loops and
iteration in other languages are just done by gluing filters
together in jq.
It’s important to remember that every filter has an input and an
output. Even literals like “hello” or 42 are filters – they take an
input but always produce the same literal as output. Operations
that combine two filters, like addition, generally feed the same
input to both and combine the results. So, you can implement an
averaging filter as add / length – feeding the input
array both to the add filter and the
length filter and dividing the results.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. :) Let’s start with
something simpler:
Invoking jq
jq filters run on a stream of JSON data. The input to jq is
parsed as a sequence of whitespace-separated JSON values which are
passed through the provided filter one at a time. The output(s) of
the filter are written to standard out, again as a sequence of
whitespace-separated JSON data.
You can affect how jq reads and writes its input and output
using some command-line options:
--slurp/-s:
Instead of running the filter for each JSON object in the input,
read the entire input stream into a large array and run the filter
just once.
--online-input/-I:
When the top-level input value is an array produce its elements
instead of the array. This allows on-line processing of potentially
very large top-level arrays’ elements.
--raw-input/-R:
Don’t parse the input as JSON. Instead, each line of text is
passed to the filter as a string. If combined with
--slurp, then the entire input is passed to the filter
as a single long string.
--null-input/-n:
Don’t read any input at all! Instead, the filter is run once
using null as the input. This is useful when using jq
as a simple calculator or to construct JSON data from scratch.
--compact-output / -c:
By default, jq pretty-prints JSON output. Using this option will
result in more compact output by instead putting each JSON object
on a single line.
--colour-output / -C and
--monochrome-output / -M:
By default, jq outputs colored JSON if writing to a terminal.
You can force it to produce color even if writing to a pipe or a
file using -C, and disable color with
-M.
--ascii-output / -a:
jq usually outputs non-ASCII Unicode codepoints as UTF-8, even
if the input specified them as escape sequences (like “\u03bc”).
Using this option, you can force jq to produce pure ASCII output
with every non-ASCII character replaced with the equivalent escape
sequence.
--unbuffered
Flush the output after each JSON object is printed (useful if
you’re piping a slow data source into jq and piping jq’s output
elsewhere).
--sort-keys / -S:
Output the fields of each object with the keys in sorted
order.
--raw-output / -r:
With this option, if the filter’s result is a string then it
will be written directly to standard output rather than being
formatted as a JSON string with quotes. This can be useful for
making jq filters talk to non-JSON-based systems.
-f filename / --from-file
filename:
Read filter from the file rather than from a command line, like
awk’s -f option. You can also use ’#’ to make comments.
-e / --exit-status:
Sets the exit status of jq to 10 if the last output values was
false, 11 if the last output value was
null, or 0 if the last output value was valid.
Normally jq exits with 0, or 1 if there was any usage problem or
other error.
--arg name value:
This option passes a value to the jq program as a predefined
variable. If you run jq with --arg foo bar, then
$foo is available in the program and has the value
"bar".
--argfile name filename:
This option passes the first value from the named file as a
value to the jq program as a predefined variable. If you run jq
with --argfile foo bar, then $foo is
available in the program and has the value resulting from parsing
the content of the file named bar.
Basic filters
.
The absolute simplest (and least interesting) filter is
.. This is a filter that takes its input and produces
it unchanged as output.
Since jq by default pretty-prints all output, this trivial
program can be a useful way of formatting JSON output from, say,
curl.
Example
jq '.'
Input
"Hello, world!"
Output
"Hello, world!"
.foo
The simplest useful filter is .foo. When
given a JSON object (aka dictionary or hash) as input, it produces
the value at the key “foo”, or null if there’s none present.
If the key contains special characters, you need to surround it
with double quotes like this: ."foo$".
Examples
jq '.foo'
Input
{"foo": 42, "bar": "less interesting data"}
Output
42
jq '.foo'
Input
{"notfoo": true, "alsonotfoo": false}
Output
null
jq '."foo"'
Input
{"foo": 42}
Output
42
.[foo], .[2],
.[10:15]
You can also look up fields of an object using syntax like
.["foo"] (.foo above is a shorthand version of this).
This one works for arrays as well, if the key is an integer. Arrays
are zero-based (like javascript), so .[2] returns the
third element of the array.
The .[10:15] syntax can be used to return a
subarray of an array or substring of a string. The array returned
by .[10:15] will be of length 5, containing the
elements from index 10 (inclusive) to index 15 (exclusive). Either
index may be negative (in which case it counts backwards from the
end of the array), or omitted (in which case it refers to the start
or end of the array).
Examples
jq '.[0]'
Input
[{"name":"JSON", "good":true}, {"name":"XML",
"good":false}]
Output
{"name":"JSON", "good":true}
jq '.[2]'
Input
[{"name":"JSON", "good":true}, {"name":"XML",
"good":false}]
Output
null
jq '.[2:4]'
Input
["a","b","c","d","e"]
Output
["c", "d"]
jq '.[2:4]'
Input
"abcdefghi"
Output
"cd"
jq '.[:3]'
Input
["a","b","c","d","e"]
Output
["a", "b", "c"]
jq '.[-2:]'
Input
["a","b","c","d","e"]
Output
["d", "e"]
.[]
If you use the .[foo] syntax, but omit the index
entirely, it will return all of the elements of an array.
Running .[] with the input [1,2,3] will
produce the numbers as three separate results, rather than as a
single array.
You can also use this on an object, and it will return all the
values of the object.
Examples
jq '.[]'
Input
[{"name":"JSON", "good":true}, {"name":"XML",
"good":false}]
Output
{"name":"JSON", "good":true}
{"name":"XML", "good":false}
jq '.[]'
Input
[]
Output
none
jq '.[]'
Input
{"a": 1, "b": 1}
Output
1
1
,
If two filters are separated by a comma, then the input will be
fed into both and there will be multiple outputs: first, all of the
outputs produced by the left expression, and then all of the
outputs produced by the right. For instance, filter .foo,
.bar, produces both the “foo” fields and “bar” fields as
separate outputs.
Examples
jq '.foo, .bar'
Input
{"foo": 42, "bar": "something else", "baz": true}
Output
42
"something else"
jq '.user, .projects[]'
Input
{"user":"stedolan", "projects": ["jq", "wikiflow"]}
Output
"stedolan"
"jq"
"wikiflow"
jq '.[4,2]'
Input
["a","b","c","d","e"]
Output
"e"
"c"
|
The | operator combines two filters by feeding the output(s) of
the one on the left into the input of the one on the right. It’s
pretty much the same as the Unix shell’s pipe, if you’re used to
that.
If the one on the left produces multiple results, the one on the
right will be run for each of those results. So, the expression
.[] | .foo retrieves the “foo” field of each element
of the input array.
Example
jq '.[] | .name'
Input
[{"name":"JSON", "good":true}, {"name":"XML",
"good":false}]
Output
"JSON"
"XML"
Types and Values
jq supports the same set of datatypes as JSON - numbers,
strings, booleans, arrays, objects (which in JSON-speak are hashes
with only string keys), and “null”.
Booleans, null, strings and numbers are written the same way as
in javascript. Just like everything else in jq, these simple values
take an input and produce an output - 42 is a valid jq
expression that takes an input, ignores it, and returns 42
instead.
Array construction - []
As in JSON, [] is used to construct arrays, as in
[1,2,3]. The elements of the arrays can be any jq
expression. All of the results produced by all of the expressions
are collected into one big array. You can use it to construct an
array out of a known quantity of values (as in [.foo, .bar,
.baz]) or to “collect” all the results of a filter into an
array (as in [.items[].name])
Once you understand the ”,” operator, you can look at jq’s array
syntax in a different light: the expression [1,2,3] is
not using a built-in syntax for comma-separated arrays, but is
instead applying the [] operator (collect results) to
the expression 1,2,3 (which produces three different results).
If you have a filter X that produces four results,
then the expression [X] will produce a single result,
an array of four elements.
Example
jq '[.user, .projects[]]'
Input
{"user":"stedolan", "projects": ["jq", "wikiflow"]}
Output
["stedolan", "jq", "wikiflow"]
Objects - {}
Like JSON, {} is for constructing objects (aka
dictionaries or hashes), as in: {"a": 42, "b":
17}.
If the keys are “sensible” (all alphabetic characters), then the
quotes can be left off. The value can be any expression_r(although
you may need to wrap it in parentheses if it’s a complicated one),
which gets applied to the {} expression’s input (remember, all
filters have an input and an output).
{foo: .bar}
will produce the JSON object {"foo": 42} if given
the JSON object {"bar":42, "baz":43}. You can use this
to select particular fields of an object: if the input is an object
with “user”, “title”, “id”, and “content” fields and you just want
“user” and “title”, you can write
{user: .user, title: .title}
Because that’s so common, there’s a shortcut syntax:
{user, title}.
If one of the expressions produces multiple results, multiple
dictionaries will be produced. If the input’s
{"user":"stedolan","titles":["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]}
then the expression
{user, title: .titles[]}
will produce two outputs:
{"user":"stedolan", "title": "JQ Primer"}
{"user":"stedolan", "title": "More JQ"}
Putting parentheses around the key means it will be evaluated as
an expression. With the same input as above,
{(.user): .titles}
produces
{"stedolan": ["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]}
Examples
jq '{user, title: .titles[]}'
Input
{"user":"stedolan","titles":["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]}
Output
{"user":"stedolan", "title": "JQ Primer"}
{"user":"stedolan", "title": "More JQ"}
jq '{(.user): .titles}'
Input
{"user":"stedolan","titles":["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]}
Output
{"stedolan": ["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]}
Builtin operators and functions
Some jq operator (for instance, +) do different
things depending on the type of their arguments (arrays, numbers,
etc.). However, jq never does implicit type conversions. If you try
to add a string to an object you’ll get an error message and no
result.
Addition - +
The operator + takes two filters, applies them both
to the same input, and adds the results together. What “adding”
means depends on the types involved:
Numbers are added by normal arithmetic.
Arrays are added by being concatenated into a
larger array.
Strings are added by being joined into a larger
string.
Objects are added by merging, that is,
inserting all the key-value pairs from both objects into a single
combined object. If both objects contain a value for the same key,
the object on the right of the + wins.
null can be added to any value, and returns the
other value unchanged.
Examples
jq '.a + 1'
Input
{"a": 7}
Output
8
jq '.a + .b'
Input
{"a": [1,2], "b": [3,4]}
Output
[1,2,3,4]
jq '.a + null'
Input
{"a": 1}
Output
1
jq '.a + 1'
Input
{}
Output
1
jq '{a: 1} + {b: 2} + {c: 3} + {a: 42}'
Input
null
Output
{"a": 42, "b": 2, "c": 3}
Subtraction - -
As well as normal arithmetic subtraction on numbers, the
- operator can be used on arrays to remove all
occurences of the second array’s elements from the first array.
Examples
jq '4 - .a'
Input
{"a":3}
Output
1
jq '. - ["xml", "yaml"]'
Input
["xml", "yaml", "json"]
Output
["json"]
Multiplication, division, modulo - *,
/, and %
These operators only work on numbers, and do the expected.
Multiplying a string by a number produces the concatenation of
that string that many times.
Dividing a string by another splits the first using the second
as separators.
Examples
jq '10 / . * 3'
Input
5
Output
6
jq '. / ", "'
Input
"a, b,c,d, e"
Output
["a","b,c,d","e"]
length
The builtin function length gets the length of
various different types of value:
The length of a string is the number of Unicode
codepoints it contains (which will be the same as its JSON-encoded
length in bytes if it’s pure ASCII).
The length of an array is the number of
elements.
The length of an object is the number of
key-value pairs.
The length of null is zero.
Example
jq '.[] | length'
Input
[[1,2], "string", {"a":2}, null]
Output
2
6
1
0
keys
The builtin function keys, when given an object,
returns its keys in an array.
The keys are sorted “alphabetically”, by unicode codepoint
order. This is not an order that makes particular sense in any
particular language, but you can count on it being the same for any
two objects with the same set of keys, regardless of locale
settings.
When keys is given an array, it returns the valid
indices for that array: the integers from 0 to length-1.
Examples
jq 'keys'
Input
{"abc": 1, "abcd": 2, "Foo": 3}
Output
["Foo", "abc", "abcd"]
jq 'keys'
Input
[42,3,35]
Output
[0,1,2]
has
The builtin function has returns whether the input
object has the given key, or the input array has an element at the
given index.
has($key) has the same effect as checking whether
$key is a member of the array returned by
keys, although has will be faster.
Examples
jq 'map(has("foo"))'
Input
[{"foo": 42}, {}]
Output
[true, false]
jq 'map(has(2))'
Input
[[0,1], ["a","b","c"]]
Output
[false, true]
to_entries, from_entries,
with_entries
These functions convert between an object and an array of
key-value pairs. If to_entries is passed an object,
then for each k: v entry in the input, the output
array includes {"key": k, "value": v}.
from_entries does the opposite conversion, and
with_entries(foo) is a shorthand for to_entries
| map(foo) | from_entries, useful for doing some operation
to all keys and values of an object.
Examples
jq 'to_entries'
Input
{"a": 1, "b": 2}
Output
[{"key":"a", "value":1}, {"key":"b", "value":2}]
jq 'from_entries'
Input
[{"key":"a", "value":1}, {"key":"b", "value":2}]
Output
{"a": 1, "b": 2}
jq 'with_entries(.key |= "KEY_" + .)'
Input
{"a": 1, "b": 2}
Output
{"KEY_a": 1, "KEY_b": 2}
select
The function select(foo) produces its input
unchanged if foo returns true for that input, and
produces no output otherwise.
It’s useful for filtering lists: [1,2,3] | map(select(.
>= 2)) will give you [2,3].
Example
jq 'map(select(. >= 2))'
Input
[1,5,3,0,7]
Output
[5,3,7]
empty
empty returns no results. None at all. Not even
null.
It’s useful on occasion. You’ll know if you need it :)
Examples
jq '1, empty, 2'
Input
null
Output
1
2
jq '[1,2,empty,3]'
Input
null
Output
[1,2,3]
map(x)
For any filter x, map(x) will run that
filter for each element of the input array, and produce the outputs
a new array. map(.+1) will increment each element of
an array of numbers.
map(x) is equivalent to [.[] | x]. In
fact, this is how it’s defined.
Example
jq 'map(.+1)'
Input
[1,2,3]
Output
[2,3,4]
add
The filter add takes as input an array, and
produces as output the elements of the array added together. This
might mean summed, concatenated or merged depending on the types of
the elements of the input array - the rules are the same as those
for the + operator (described above).
If the input is an empty array, add returns
null.
Examples
jq 'add'
Input
["a","b","c"]
Output
"abc"
jq 'add'
Input
[1, 2, 3]
Output
6
jq 'add'
Input
[]
Output
null
range
The range function produces a range of numbers.
range(4;10) produces 6 numbers, from 4 (inclusive) to
10 (exclusive). The numbers are produced as separate outputs. Use
[range(4;10)] to get a range as an array.
Examples
jq 'range(2;4)'
Input
null
Output
2
3
jq '[range(2;4)]'
Input
null
Output
[2,3]
floor
The floor function returns the floor of its numeric
input.
Example
jq 'floor'
Input
3.14159
Output
3
sqrt
The sqrt function returns the square root of its
numeric input.
Example
jq 'sqrt'
Input
9
Output
3
tonumber
The tonumber function parses its input as a number.
It will convert correctly-formatted strings to their numeric
equivalent, leave numbers alone, and give an error on all other
input.
Example
jq '.[] | tonumber'
Input
[1, "1"]
Output
1
1
tostring
The tostring function prints its input as a string.
Strings are left unchanged, and all other values are
JSON-encoded.
Example
jq '.[] | tostring'
Input
[1, "1", [1]]
Output
"1"
"1"
"[1]"
type
The type function returns the type of its argument
as a string, which is one of null, boolean, number, string, array
or object.
Example
jq 'map(type)'
Input
[0, false, [], {}, null, "hello"]
Output
["number", "boolean", "array", "object", "null", "string"]
sort, sort_by
The sort functions sorts its input, which must be
an array. Values are sorted in the following order:
null
false
true
numbers
strings, in alphabetical order (by unicode codepoint
value)
arrays, in lexical order
objects
The ordering for objects is a little complex: first they’re
compared by comparing their sets of keys (as arrays in sorted
order), and if their keys are equal then the values are compared
key by key.
sort_by may be used to sort by a particular field
of an object, or by applying any jq filter.
sort_by(foo) compares two elements by comparing the
result of foo on each element.
Examples
jq 'sort'
Input
[8,3,null,6]
Output
[null,3,6,8]
jq 'sort_by(.foo)'
Input
[{"foo":4, "bar":10}, {"foo":3, "bar":100}, {"foo":2,
"bar":1}]
Output
[{"foo":2, "bar":1}, {"foo":3, "bar":100}, {"foo":4,
"bar":10}]
group_by
group_by(.foo) takes as input an array, groups the
elements having the same .foo field into separate
arrays, and produces all of these arrays as elements of a larger
array, sorted by the value of the .foo field.
Any jq expression, not just a field access, may be used in place
of .foo. The sorting order is the same as described in
the sort function above.
Example
jq 'group_by(.foo)'
Input
[{"foo":1, "bar":10}, {"foo":3, "bar":100}, {"foo":1,
"bar":1}]
Output
[[{"foo":1, "bar":10}, {"foo":1, "bar":1}], [{"foo":3,
"bar":100}]]
min, max, min_by,
max_by
Find the minimum or maximum element of the input array. The
_by versions allow you to specify a particular field
or property to examine, e.g. min_by(.foo) finds the
object with the smallest foo field.
Examples
jq 'min'
Input
[5,4,2,7]
Output
2
jq 'max_by(.foo)'
Input
[{"foo":1, "bar":14}, {"foo":2, "bar":3}]
Output
{"foo":2, "bar":3}
unique
The unique function takes as input an array and
produces an array of the same elements, in sorted order, with
duplicates removed.
Example
jq 'unique'
Input
[1,2,5,3,5,3,1,3]
Output
[1,2,3,5]
reverse
This function reverses an array.
Example
jq 'reverse'
Input
[1,2,3,4]
Output
[4,3,2,1]
contains
The filter contains(b) will produce true if b is
completely contained within the input. A string B is contained in a
string A if B is a substring of A. An array B is contained in an
array A is all elements in B are contained in any element in A. An
object B is contained in object A if all of the values in B are
contained in the value in A with the same key. All other types are
assumed to be contained in each other if they are equal.
Examples
jq 'contains("bar")'
Input
"foobar"
Output
true
jq 'contains(["baz", "bar"])'
Input
["foobar", "foobaz", "blarp"]
Output
true
jq 'contains(["bazzzzz", "bar"])'
Input
["foobar", "foobaz", "blarp"]
Output
false
jq 'contains({foo: 12, bar: [{barp:
12}]})'
Input
{"foo": 12, "bar":[1,2,{"barp":12, "blip":13}]}
Output
true
jq 'contains({foo: 12, bar: [{barp:
15}]})'
Input
{"foo": 12, "bar":[1,2,{"barp":12, "blip":13}]}
Output
false
startswith
Outputs true if . starts with the given string
argument.
Example
jq '[.[]|startswith("foo")]'
Input
["fo", "foo", "barfoo", "foobar", "barfoob"]
Output
[false, true, false, true, false]
endswith
Outputs true if . ends with the given string
argument.
Example
jq '[.[]|endswith("foo")]'
Input
["foobar", "barfoo"]
Output
[false, true, true, false, false]
ltrimstr
Outputs its input with the given prefix string removed, if it
starts with it.
Example
jq '[.[]|ltrimstr("foo")]'
Input
["fo", "foo", "barfoo", "foobar", "afoo"]
Output
["fo","","barfoo","bar","afoo"]
rtrimstr
Outputs its input with the given suffix string removed, if it
starts with it.
Example
jq '[.[]|rtrimstr("foo")]'
Input
["fo", "foo", "barfoo", "foobar", "foob"]
Output
["fo","","bar","foobar","foob"]
explode
Converts an input string into an array of the string’s codepoint
numbers.
Example
jq 'explode'
Input
"foobar"
Output
[102,111,111,98,97,114]
implode
The inverse of explode.
Example
jq 'implode'
Input
[65, 66, 67]
Output
"ABC"
split
Splits an input string on the separator argument.
Example
jq 'split(", ")'
Input
"a, b,c,d, e"
Output
["a","b,c,d","e"]
recurse
The recurse function allows you to search through a
recursive structure, and extract interesting data from all levels.
Suppose your input represents a filesystem:
{"name": "/", "children": [
{"name": "/bin", "children": [
{"name": "/bin/ls", "children": []},
{"name": "/bin/sh", "children": []}]},
{"name": "/home", "children": [
{"name": "/home/stephen", "children": [
{"name": "/home/stephen/jq", "children": []}]}]}]}
Now suppose you want to extract all of the filenames present.
You need to retrieve .name,
.children[].name,
.children[].children[].name, and so on. You can do
this with:
recurse(.children[]) | .name
Example
jq 'recurse(.foo[])'
Input
{"foo":[{"foo": []}, {"foo":[{"foo":[]}]}]}
Output
{"foo":[{"foo":[]},{"foo":[{"foo":[]}]}]}
{"foo":[]}
{"foo":[{"foo":[]}]}
{"foo":[]}
String interpolation - \(foo)
Inside a string, you can put an expression inside parens after a
backslash. Whatever the expression returns will be interpolated
into the string.
Example
jq '"The input was \(.), which is one less
than \(.+1)"'
Input
42
Output
"The input was 42, which is one less than 43"
Convert to/from JSON
The tojson and fromjson builtins dump
values as JSON texts or parse JSON texts into values, respectively.
The tojson builtin differs from tostring in that tostring returns
strings unmodified, while tojson encodes strings as JSON
strings.
Examples
jq '[.[]|tostring]'
Input
[1, "foo", ["foo"]]
Output
["1","foo","[\"foo\"]"]
jq '[.[]|tojson]'
Input
[1, "foo", ["foo"]]
Output
["1","\"foo\"","[\"foo\"]"]
jq '[.[]|tojson|fromjson]'
Input
[1, "foo", ["foo"]]
Output
[1,"foo",["foo"]]
Format strings and escaping
The @foo syntax is used to format and escape
strings, which is useful for building URLs, documents in a language
like HTML or XML, and so forth. @foo can be used as a
filter on its own, the possible escapings are:
@text:
Calls tostring, see that function for details.
@json:
Serialises the input as JSON.
@html:
Applies HTML/XML escaping, by mapping the characters
<>&'" to their entity equivalents
,
&, ',
".
@uri:
Applies percent-encoding, by mapping all reserved URI characters
to a %xx sequence.
@csv:
The input must be an array, and it is rendered as CSV with
double quotes for strings, and quotes escaped by repetition.
@sh:
The input is escaped suitable for use in a command-line for a
POSIX shell. If the input is an array, the output will be a series
of space-separated strings.
@base64:
The input is converted to base64 as specified by RFC 4648.
This syntax can be combined with string interpolation in a
useful way. You can follow a @foo token with a string
literal. The contents of the string literal will not be
escaped. However, all interpolations made inside that string
literal will be escaped. For instance,
@uri "http://www.google.com/search?q=\(.search)"
will produce the following output for the input
{"search":"jq!"}:
http://www.google.com/search?q=jq!
Note that the slashes, question mark, etc. in the URL are not
escaped, as they were part of the string literal.
Examples
jq '@html'
Input
"This works if x < y"
Output
"This works if x < y"
jq '@sh "echo \(.)"'
Input
"O'Hara's Ale"
Output
"echo 'O'\\''Hara'\\''s Ale'"
Conditionals and Comparisons
==, !=
The expression ‘a == b’ will produce ‘true’ if the result of a
and b are equal (that is, if they represent equivalent JSON
documents) and ‘false’ otherwise. In particular, strings are never
considered equal to numbers. If you’re coming from Javascript, jq’s
== is like Javascript’s === - considering values equal only when
they have the same type as well as the same value.
!= is “not equal”, and ‘a != b’ returns the opposite value of ‘a
== b’
Example
jq '.[] == 1'
Input
[1, 1.0, "1", "banana"]
Output
true
true
false
false
if-then-else
if A then B else C end will act the same as
B if A produces a value other than false
or null, but act the same as C otherwise.
Checking for false or null is a simpler notion of “truthiness”
than is found in Javascript or Python, but it means that you’ll
sometimes have to be more explicit about the condition you want:
you can’t test whether, e.g. a string is empty using if .name
then A else B end, you’ll need something more like if
(.name | length) > 0 then A else B end instead.
If the condition A produces multiple results, it is considered
“true” if any of those results is not false or null. If it produces
zero results, it’s considered false.
More cases can be added to an if using elif A then
B syntax.
Example
jq 'if . == 0 then "zero" elif . == 1 then
"one" else "many" end'
Input
2
Output
"many"
>, >=, <=, <
The comparison operators >, >=,
<=, < return whether their
left argument is greater than, greater than or equal to, less than
or equal to or less than their right argument
(respectively).
The ordering is the same as that described for
sort, above.
Example
jq '. < 5'
Input
2
Output
true
and/or/not
jq supports the normal Boolean operators and/or/not. They have
the same standard of truth as if expressions - false and null are
considered “false values”, and anything else is a “true value”.
If an operand of one of these operators produces multiple
results, the operator itself will produce a result for each
input.
not is in fact a builtin function rather than an
operator, so it is called as a filter to which things can be piped
rather than with special syntax, as in .foo and .bar |
not.
These three only produce the values “true” and “false”, and so
are only useful for genuine Boolean operations, rather than the
common Perl/Python/Ruby idiom of “value_that_may_be_null or
default”. If you want to use this form of “or”, picking between two
values rather than evaluating a condition, see the “//” operator
below.
Examples
jq '42 and "a string"'
Input
null
Output
true
jq '(true, false) or false'
Input
null
Output
true
false
jq '(true, true) and (true, false)'
Input
null
Output
true
false
true
false
jq '[true, false | not]'
Input
null
Output
[false, true]
Alternative operator - //
A filter of the form a // b produces the same
results as a, if a produces results other
than false and null. Otherwise, a
// b produces the same results as b.
This is useful for providing defaults: .foo // 1
will evaluate to 1 if there’s no .foo
element in the input. It’s similar to how or is
sometimes used in Python (jq’s or operator is reserved
for strictly Boolean operations).
Examples
jq '.foo // 42'
Input
{"foo": 19}
Output
19
jq '.foo // 42'
Input
{}
Output
42
Advanced features
Variables are an absolute necessity in most programming
languages, but they’re relegated to an “advanced feature” in
jq.
In most languages, variables are the only means of passing
around data. If you calculate a value, and you want to use it more
than once, you’ll need to store it in a variable. To pass a value
to another part of the program, you’ll need that part of the
program to define a variable (as a function parameter, object
member, or whatever) in which to place the data.
It is also possible to define functions in jq, although this is
is a feature whose biggest use is defining jq’s standard library
(many jq functions such as map and find
are in fact written in jq).
Finally, jq has a reduce operation, which is very
powerful but a bit tricky. Again, it’s mostly used internally, to
define some useful bits of jq’s standard library.
Variables
In jq, all filters have an input and an output, so manual
plumbing is not necessary to pass a value from one part of a
program to the next. Many expressions, for instance a +
b, pass their input to two distinct subexpressions (here
a and b are both passed the same input),
so variables aren’t usually necessary in order to use a value
twice.
For instance, calculating the average value of an array of
numbers requires a few variables in most languages - at least one
to hold the array, perhaps one for each element or for a loop
counter. In jq, it’s simply add / length - the
add expression is given the array and produces its
sum, and the length expression is given the array and
produces its length.
So, there’s generally a cleaner way to solve most problems in jq
than defining variables. Still, sometimes they do make things
easier, so jq lets you define variables using expression as
$variable. All variable names start with $.
Here’s a slightly uglier version of the array-averaging
example:
length as $array_length | add / $array_length
We’ll need a more complicated problem to find a situation where
using variables actually makes our lives easier.
Suppose we have an array of blog posts, with “author” and
“title” fields, and another object which is used to map author
usernames to real names. Our input looks like:
{"posts": [{"title": "Frist psot", "author": "anon"},
{"title": "A well-written article", "author": "person1"}],
"realnames": {"anon": "Anonymous Coward",
"person1": "Person McPherson"}}
We want to produce the posts with the author field containing a
real name, as in:
{"title": "Frist psot", "author": "Anonymous Coward"}
{"title": "A well-written article", "author": "Person McPherson"}
We use a variable, $names, to store the realnames object, so
that we can refer to it later when looking up author usernames:
.realnames as $names | .posts[] | {title, author: $names[.author]}
The expression exp as $x | ... means: for each
value of expression exp, run the rest of the pipeline
with the entire original input, and with $x set to
that value. Thus as functions as something of a
foreach loop.
Variables are scoped over the rest of the expression that
defines them, so
.realnames as $names | (.posts[] | {title, author: $names[.author]})
will work, but
(.realnames as $names | .posts[]) | {title, author: $names[.author]}
won’t.
Example
jq '.bar as $x | .foo | . + $x'
Input
{"foo":10, "bar":200}
Output
210
Defining Functions
You can give a filter a name using “def” syntax:
def increment: . + 1;
From then on, increment is usable as a filter just
like a builtin function (in fact, this is how some of the builtins
are defined). A function may take arguments:
def map(f): [.[] | f];
Arguments are passed as filters, not as values. The same
argument may be referenced multiple times with different inputs
(here f is run for each element of the input array).
Arguments to a function work more like callbacks than like value
arguments.
If you want the value-argument behaviour for defining simple
functions, you can just use a variable:
def addvalue(f): f as $value | map(. + $value);
With that definition, addvalue(.foo) will add the
current input’s .foo field to each element of the
array.
Examples
jq 'def addvalue(f): . + [f];
map(addvalue(.[0]))'
Input
[[1,2],[10,20]]
Output
[[1,2,1], [10,20,10]]
jq 'def addvalue(f): f as $x | map(. + $x);
addvalue(.[0])'
Input
[[1,2],[10,20]]
Output
[[1,2,1,2], [10,20,1,2]]
Reduce
The reduce syntax in jq allows you to combine all
of the results of an expression by accumulating them into a single
answer. As an example, we’ll pass [3,2,1] to this
expression:
reduce .[] as $item (0; . + $item)
For each result that .[] produces, . +
$item is run to accumulate a running total, starting from 0.
In this example, .[] produces the results 3, 2, and 1,
so the effect is similar to running something like this:
0 | (3 as $item | . + $item) |
(2 as $item | . + $item) |
(1 as $item | . + $item)
Example
jq 'reduce .[] as $item (0; . + $item)'
Input
[10,2,5,3]
Output
20
Assignment
Assignment works a little differently in jq than in most
programming languages. jq doesn’t distinguish between references to
and copies of something - two objects or arrays are either equal or
not equal, without any further notion of being “the same object” or
“not the same object”.
If an object has two fields which are arrays, .foo
and .bar, and you append something to
.foo, then .bar will not get bigger. Even
if you’ve just set .bar = .foo. If you’re used to
programming in languages like Python, Java, Ruby, Javascript, etc.
then you can think of it as though jq does a full deep copy of
every object before it does the assignment (for performance, it
doesn’t actually do that, but that’s the general idea).
=
The filter .foo = 1 will take as input an object
and produce as output an object with the “foo” field set to 1.
There is no notion of “modifying” or “changing” something in jq -
all jq values are immutable. For instance,
.foo = .bar | .foo.baz = 1
will not have the side-effect of setting .bar.baz to be set to
1, as the similar-looking program in Javascript, Python, Ruby or
other languages would. Unlike these languages (but like Haskell and
some other functional languages), there is no notion of two arrays
or objects being “the same array” or “the same object”. They can be
equal, or not equal, but if we change one of them in no
circumstances will the other change behind our backs.
This means that it’s impossible to build circular values in jq
(such as an array whose first element is itself). This is quite
intentional, and ensures that anything a jq program can produce can
be represented in JSON.
|=
As well as the assignment operator ’=’, jq provides the “update”
operator ‘|=’, which takes a filter on the right-hand side and
works out the new value for the property being assigned to by
running the old value through this expression. For instance, .foo
|= .+1 will build an object with the “foo” field set to the input’s
“foo” plus 1.
This example should show the difference between ’=’ and
‘|=’:
Provide input ‘{”a”: {”b”: 10}, “b”: 20}’ to the programs:
.a = .b .a |= .b
The former will set the “a” field of the input to the “b” field
of the input, and produce the output {”a”: 20}. The latter will set
the “a” field of the input to the “a” field’s “b” field, producing
{”a”: 10}.
+=, -=, *=,
/=, %=, //=
jq has a few operators of the form a op= b, which
are all equivalent to a |= . op b. So, +=
1 can be used to increment values.
Example
jq '.foo += 1'
Input
{"foo": 42}
Output
{"foo": 43}
Complex assignments
Lots more things are allowed on the left-hand side of a jq
assignment than in most langauges. We’ve already seen simple field
accesses on the left hand side, and it’s no surprise that array
accesses work just as well:
.posts[0].title = "JQ Manual"
What may come as a surprise is that the expression on the left
may produce multiple results, referring to different points in the
input document:
.posts[].comments |= . + ["this is great"]
That example appends the string “this is great” to the
“comments” array of each post in the input (where the input is an
object with a field “posts” which is an array of posts).
When jq encounters an assignment like ‘a = b’, it records the
“path” taken to select a part of the input document while executing
a. This path is then used to find which part of the input to change
while executing the assignment. Any filter may be used on the
left-hand side of an equals - whichever paths it selects from the
input will be where the assignment is performed.
This is a very powerful operation. Suppose we wanted to add a
comment to blog posts, using the same “blog” input above. This
time, we only want to comment on the posts written by “stedolan”.
We can find those posts using the “select” function described
earlier:
.posts[] | select(.author == "stedolan")
The paths provided by this operation point to each of the posts
that “stedolan” wrote, and we can comment on each of them in the
same way that we did before:
(.posts[] | select(.author == "stedolan") | .comments) |=
. + ["terrible."]
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