jq Manual (development version)
For other versions, see 1.7, 1.6, 1.5, 1.4, 1.3 or development version.
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 then performing the division.
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 output, as a sequence of newline-separated JSON data.
The simplest and most common filter (or jq program) is .
,
which is the identity operator, copying the inputs of the jq
processor to the output stream. Because the default behavior of
the jq processor is to read JSON texts from the input stream,
and to pretty-print outputs, the .
program's main use is to
validate and pretty-print the inputs. The jq programming
language is quite rich and allows for much more than just
validation and pretty-printing.
Note: it is important to mind the shell's quoting rules. As a
general rule it's best to always quote (with single-quote
characters on Unix shells) the jq program, as too many characters with special
meaning to jq are also shell meta-characters. For example, jq
"foo"
will fail on most Unix shells because that will be the same
as jq foo
, which will generally fail because foo is not
defined
. When using the Windows command shell (cmd.exe) it's
best to use double quotes around your jq program when given on the
command-line (instead of the -f program-file
option), but then
double-quotes in the jq program need backslash escaping. When using
the Powershell (powershell.exe
) or the Powershell Core
(pwsh
/pwsh.exe
), use single-quote characters around the jq
program and backslash-escaped double-quotes (\"
) inside the jq
program.
- Unix shells:
jq '.["foo"]'
- Powershell:
jq '.[\"foo\"]'
- Windows command shell:
jq ".[\"foo\"]"
Note: jq allows user-defined functions, but every jq program must have a top-level expression.
You can affect how jq reads and writes its input and output using some command-line options:
--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.
--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.
--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.
--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.
--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.
--raw-output0
:
Like -r
but jq will print NUL instead of newline after each output.
This can be useful when the values being output can contain newlines.
When the output value contains NUL, jq exits with non-zero code.
--join-output
/-j
:
Like -r
but jq won't print a newline after each output.
--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.
--sort-keys
/-S
:
Output the fields of each object with the keys in sorted order.
--color-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
.
When the NO_COLOR
environment variable is not empty, jq disables
colored output by default, but you can enable it by -C
.
Colors can be configured with the JQ_COLORS
environment
variable (see below).
--tab
:
Use a tab for each indentation level instead of two spaces.
--indent n
:
Use the given number of spaces (no more than 7) for indentation.
--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).
--stream
:
Parse the input in streaming fashion, outputting arrays of path
and leaf values (scalars and empty arrays or empty objects).
For example, "a"
becomes [[],"a"]
, and [[],"a",["b"]]
becomes [[0],[]]
, [[1],"a"]
, and [[2,0],"b"]
.
This is useful for processing very large inputs. Use this in
conjunction with filtering and the reduce
and foreach
syntax
to reduce large inputs incrementally.
--stream-errors
:
Like --stream
, but invalid JSON inputs yield array values
where the first element is the error and the second is a path.
For example, ["a",n]
produces ["Invalid literal at line 1,
column 7",[1]]
.
Implies --stream
. Invalid JSON inputs produce no error values
when --stream
without --stream-errors
.
--seq
:
Use the application/json-seq
MIME type scheme for separating
JSON texts in jq's input and output. This means that an ASCII
RS (record separator) character is printed before each value on
output and an ASCII LF (line feed) is printed after every
output. Input JSON texts that fail to parse are ignored (but
warned about), discarding all subsequent input until the next
RS. This mode also parses the output of jq without the --seq
option.
-f filename
/--from-file filename
:
Read filter from the file rather than from a command line, like awk's -f option.
-L directory
:
Prepend directory
to the search list for modules. If this
option is used then no builtin search list is used. See the
section on modules below.
--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"
. Note that
value
will be treated as a string, so --arg foo 123
will
bind $foo
to "123"
.
Named arguments are also available to the jq program as
$ARGS.named
.
--argjson name JSON-text
:
This option passes a JSON-encoded value to the jq program as a
predefined variable. If you run jq with --argjson foo 123
, then
$foo
is available in the program and has the value 123
.
--slurpfile variable-name filename
:
This option reads all the JSON texts in the named file and binds
an array of the parsed JSON values to the given global variable.
If you run jq with --slurpfile foo bar
, then $foo
is available
in the program and has an array whose elements correspond to the
texts in the file named bar
.
--rawfile variable-name filename
:
This option reads in the named file and binds its contents to the given
global variable. If you run jq with --rawfile foo bar
, then $foo
is
available in the program and has a string whose contents are to the texts
in the file named bar
.
--args
:
Remaining arguments are positional string arguments. These are
available to the jq program as $ARGS.positional[]
.
--jsonargs
:
Remaining arguments are positional JSON text arguments. These
are available to the jq program as $ARGS.positional[]
.
--exit-status
/-e
:
Sets the exit status of jq to 0 if the last output value was
neither false
nor null
, 1 if the last output value was
either false
or null
, or 4 if no valid result was ever
produced. Normally jq exits with 2 if there was any usage
problem or system error, 3 if there was a jq program compile
error, or 0 if the jq program ran.
Another way to set the exit status is with the halt_error
builtin function.
--binary
/-b
:
Windows users using WSL, MSYS2, or Cygwin, should use this option when using a native jq.exe, otherwise jq will turn newlines (LFs) into carriage-return-then-newline (CRLF).
--version
/-V
:
Output the jq version and exit with zero.
--build-configuration
:
Output the build configuration of jq and exit with zero. This output has no supported format or structure and may change without notice in future releases.
--help
/-h
:
Output the jq help and exit with zero.
--
:
Terminates argument processing. Remaining arguments are not interpreted as options.
--run-tests [filename]
:
Runs the tests in the given file or standard input. This must
be the last option given and does not honor all preceding
options. The input consists of comment lines, empty lines, and
program lines followed by one input line, as many lines of
output as are expected (one per output), and a terminating empty
line. Compilation failure tests start with a line containing
only %%FAIL
, then a line containing the program to compile,
then a line containing an error message to compare to the
actual.
Be warned that this option can change backwards-incompatibly.
Basic filters
Identity: .
The absolute simplest filter is .
. This filter takes its
input and produces the same value as output. That is, this
is the identity operator.
Since jq by default pretty-prints all output, a trivial
program consisting of nothing but .
can be used to format
JSON output from, say, curl
.
Although the identity filter never modifies the value of its input, jq processing can sometimes make it appear as though it does. For example, using the current implementation of jq, we would see that the expression:
1E1234567890 | .
produces 1.7976931348623157e+308
on at least one platform.
This is because, in the process of parsing the number, this
particular version of jq has converted it to an IEEE754
double-precision representation, losing precision.
The way in which jq handles numbers has changed over time and further changes are likely within the parameters set by the relevant JSON standards. Moreover, build configuration options can alter how jq processes numbers.
The following remarks are therefore offered with the understanding that they are intended to be descriptive of the current version of jq and should not be interpreted as being prescriptive:
(1) Any arithmetic operation on a number that has not already been converted to an IEEE754 double precision representation will trigger a conversion to the IEEE754 representation.
(2) jq will attempt to maintain the original decimal
precision of number literals (if the --disable-decnum
build configuration option was not used), but in expressions
such 1E1234567890
, precision will be lost if the exponent
is too large.
(3) In jq programs, a leading minus sign will trigger the conversion of the number to an IEEE754 representation.
(4) Comparisons are carried out using the untruncated big decimal representation of numbers if available, as illustrated in one of the following examples.
The examples below use the builtin function have_decnum
in
order to demonstrate the expected effects of using / not
using the --disable-decnum
build configuration option, and
also to allow automated tests derived from these examples to
pass regardless of whether that option is used.
Command | jq '.' |
---|---|
Input | "Hello, world!" |
Output | "Hello, world!" |
Run |
Command | jq '.' |
---|---|
Input | 0.12345678901234567890123456789 |
Output | 0.12345678901234567890123456789 |
Run |
Command | jq '[., tojson] | . == if have_decnum then [12345678909876543212345,"12345678909876543212345"] else [12345678909876543000000,"12345678909876543000000"] end' |
---|---|
Input | 12345678909876543212345 |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq '. < 0.12345678901234567890123456788' |
---|---|
Input | 0.12345678901234567890123456789 |
Output | false |
Run |
Command | jq 'map([., . == 1]) | tojson | . == if have_decnum then "[[1,true],[1.000,true],[1.0,true],[1.00,true]]" else "[[1,true],[1,true],[1,true],[1,true]]" end' |
---|---|
Input | [1, 1.000, 1.0, 100e-2] |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq '. as $big | [$big, $big + 1] | map(. > 10000000000000000000000000000000) | . == if have_decnum then [true, false] else [false, false] end' |
---|---|
Input | 10000000000000000000000000000001 |
Output | true |
Run |
Object Identifier-Index: .foo
, .foo.bar
The simplest useful filter has the form .foo
. When given a
JSON object (aka dictionary or hash) as input, .foo
produces
the value at the key "foo" if the key is present, or null otherwise.
A filter of the form .foo.bar
is equivalent to .foo | .bar
.
The .foo
syntax only works for simple, identifier-like keys, that
is, keys that are all made of alphanumeric characters and
underscore, and which do not start with a digit.
If the key contains special characters or starts with a digit,
you need to surround it with double quotes like this:
."foo$"
, or else .["foo$"]
.
For example .["foo::bar"]
and .["foo.bar"]
work while
.foo::bar
does not.
Optional Object Identifier-Index: .foo?
Just like .foo
, but does not output an error when .
is not an
object.
Object Index: .[<string>]
You can also look up fields of an object using syntax like
.["foo"]
(.foo
above is a shorthand version of this, but
only for identifier-like strings).
Array Index: .[<number>]
When the index value is an integer, .[<number>]
can index
arrays. Arrays are zero-based, so .[2]
returns the third
element.
Negative indices are allowed, with -1 referring to the last element, -2 referring to the next to last element, and so on.
Array/String Slice: .[<number>:<number>]
The .[<number>:<number>]
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).
Indices are zero-based.
Array/Object Value Iterator: .[]
If you use the .[index]
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. A filter of the form .foo[]
is equivalent to
.foo | .[]
.
You can also use this on an object, and it will return all the values of the object.
Note that the iterator operator is a generator of values.
Command | jq '.[]' |
---|---|
Input | [{"name":"JSON", "good":true}, {"name":"XML", "good":false}] |
Output | {"name":"JSON", "good":true} |
{"name":"XML", "good":false} | |
Run |
Command | jq '.[]' |
---|---|
Input | [] |
Output | none |
Run |
Command | jq '.foo[]' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo":[1,2,3]} |
Output | 1 |
2 | |
3 | |
Run |
Command | jq '.[]' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": 1, "b": 1} |
Output | 1 |
1 | |
Run |
.[]?
Like .[]
, but no errors will be output if . is not an array
or object. A filter of the form .foo[]?
is equivalent to
.foo | .[]?
.
Comma: ,
If two filters are separated by a comma, then the
same input will be fed into both and the two filters' output
value streams will be concatenated in order: 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.
The ,
operator is one way to construct generators.
Command | jq '.foo, .bar' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo": 42, "bar": "something else", "baz": true} |
Output | 42 |
"something else" | |
Run |
Command | jq '.user, .projects[]' |
---|---|
Input | {"user":"stedolan", "projects": ["jq", "wikiflow"]} |
Output | "stedolan" |
"jq" | |
"wikiflow" | |
Run |
Command | jq '.[4,2]' |
---|---|
Input | ["a","b","c","d","e"] |
Output | "e" |
"c" | |
Run |
Pipe: |
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 similar to 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. This is a cartesian product,
which can be surprising.
Note that .a.b.c
is the same as .a | .b | .c
.
Note too that .
is the input value at the particular stage
in a "pipeline", specifically: where the .
expression appears.
Thus .a | . | .b
is the same as .a.b
, as the .
in the
middle refers to whatever value .a
produced.
Command | jq '.[] | .name' |
---|---|
Input | [{"name":"JSON", "good":true}, {"name":"XML", "good":false}] |
Output | "JSON" |
"XML" | |
Run |
Parenthesis
Parenthesis work as a grouping operator just as in any typical programming language.
Command | jq '(. + 2) * 5' |
---|---|
Input | 1 |
Output | 15 |
Run |
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 JSON. 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.
Numbers in jq are internally represented by their IEEE754 double precision approximation. Any arithmetic operation with numbers, whether they are literals or results of previous filters, will produce a double precision floating point result.
However, when parsing a literal jq will store the original literal string. If no mutation is applied to this value then it will make to the output in its original form, even if conversion to double would result in a loss.
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, including a pipeline. 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.
Object Construction: {}
Like JSON, {}
is for constructing objects (aka
dictionaries or hashes), as in: {"a": 42, "b": 17}
.
If the keys are "identifier-like", then the quotes can be left
off, as in {a:42, b:17}
. Variable references as key
expressions use the value of the variable as the key. Key
expressions other than constant literals, identifiers, or
variable references, need to be parenthesized, e.g.,
{("a"+"b"):59}
.
The value can be any expression (although you may need to wrap it in parentheses if, for example, it contains colons), 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}
as its input. 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 is so common, there's a shortcut syntax for it:
{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"]}
Variable references as keys use the value of the variable as the key. Without a value then the variable's name becomes the key and its value becomes the value,
"f o o" as $foo | "b a r" as $bar | {$foo, $bar:$foo}
produces
{"foo":"f o o","b a r":"f o o"}
Command | jq '{user, title: .titles[]}' |
---|---|
Input | {"user":"stedolan","titles":["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]} |
Output | {"user":"stedolan", "title": "JQ Primer"} |
{"user":"stedolan", "title": "More JQ"} | |
Run |
Command | jq '{(.user): .titles}' |
---|---|
Input | {"user":"stedolan","titles":["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]} |
Output | {"stedolan": ["JQ Primer", "More JQ"]} |
Run |
Recursive Descent: ..
Recursively descends .
, producing every value. This is the
same as the zero-argument recurse
builtin (see below). This
is intended to resemble the XPath //
operator. Note that
..a
does not work; use .. | .a
instead. In the example
below we use .. | .a?
to find all the values of object keys
"a" in any object found "below" .
.
This is particularly useful in conjunction with path(EXP)
(also see below) and the ?
operator.
Command | jq '.. | .a?' |
---|---|
Input | [[{"a":1}]] |
Output | 1 |
Run |
Builtin operators and functions
Some jq operators (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.
Please note that all numbers are converted to IEEE754 double precision floating point representation. Arithmetic and logical operators are working with these converted doubles. Results of all such operations are also limited to the double precision.
The only exception to this behaviour of number is a snapshot of original number literal. When a number which originally was provided as a literal is never mutated until the end of the program then it is printed to the output in its original literal form. This also includes cases when the original literal would be truncated when converted to the IEEE754 double precision floating point number.
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. (For recursive merge use the*
operator.)
null
can be added to any value, and returns the other
value unchanged.
Command | jq '.a + 1' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": 7} |
Output | 8 |
Run |
Command | jq '.a + .b' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": [1,2], "b": [3,4]} |
Output | [1,2,3,4] |
Run |
Command | jq '.a + null' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": 1} |
Output | 1 |
Run |
Command | jq '.a + 1' |
---|---|
Input | {} |
Output | 1 |
Run |
Command | jq '{a: 1} + {b: 2} + {c: 3} + {a: 42}' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | {"a": 42, "b": 2, "c": 3} |
Run |
Subtraction: -
As well as normal arithmetic subtraction on numbers, the -
operator can be used on arrays to remove all occurrences of
the second array's elements from the first array.
Multiplication, division, modulo: *
, /
, %
These infix operators behave as expected when given two numbers.
Division by zero raises an error. x % y
computes x modulo y.
Multiplying a string by a number produces the concatenation of
that string that many times. "x" * 0
produces ""
.
Dividing a string by another splits the first using the second as separators.
Multiplying two objects will merge them recursively: this works like addition but if both objects contain a value for the same key, and the values are objects, the two are merged with the same strategy.
abs
The builtin function abs
is defined naively as: if . < 0 then - . else . end
.
For numeric input, this is the absolute value. See the section on the identity filter for the implications of this definition for numeric input.
To compute the absolute value of a number as a floating point number, you may wish use fabs
.
Command | jq 'map(abs)' |
---|---|
Input | [-10, -1.1, -1e-1] |
Output | [10,1.1,1e-1] |
Run |
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 a number is its absolute value.
-
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.
-
It is an error to use
length
on a boolean.
Command | jq '.[] | length' |
---|---|
Input | [[1,2], "string", {"a":2}, null, -5] |
Output | 2 |
6 | |
1 | |
0 | |
5 | |
Run |
utf8bytelength
The builtin function utf8bytelength
outputs the number of
bytes used to encode a string in UTF-8.
Command | jq 'utf8bytelength' |
---|---|
Input | "\u03bc" |
Output | 2 |
Run |
keys
, keys_unsorted
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.
The keys_unsorted
function is just like keys
, but if
the input is an object then the keys will not be sorted,
instead the keys will roughly be in insertion order.
has(key)
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 $key
is a member of the array returned by keys
, although has
will be faster.
in
The builtin function in
returns whether or not the input key is in the
given object, or the input index corresponds to an element
in the given array. It is, essentially, an inversed version
of has
.
map(f)
, map_values(f)
For any filter f
, map(f)
and map_values(f)
apply f
to each of the values in the input array or object, that is,
to the values of .[]
.
In the absence of errors, map(f)
always outputs an array
whereas map_values(f)
outputs an array if given an array,
or an object if given an object.
When the input to map_values(f)
is an object, the output
object has the same keys as the input object except for
those keys whose values when piped to f
produce no values
at all.
The key difference between map(f)
and map_values(f)
is
that the former simply forms an array from all the values of
($x|f)
for each value, $x, in the input array or object,
but map_values(f)
only uses first($x|f)
.
Specifically, for object inputs, map_values(f)
constructs
the output object by examining in turn the value of
first(.[$k]|f)
for each key, $k, of the input. If this
expression produces no values, then the corresponding key
will be dropped; otherwise, the output object will have that
value at the key, $k.
Here are some examples to clarify the behavior of map
and
map_values
when applied to arrays. These examples assume the
input is [1]
in all cases:
map(.+1) #=> [2]
map(., .) #=> [1,1]
map(empty) #=> []
map_values(.+1) #=> [2]
map_values(., .) #=> [1]
map_values(empty) #=> []
map(f)
is equivalent to [.[] | f]
and
map_values(f)
is equivalent to .[] |= f
.
In fact, these are their implementations.
Command | jq 'map(.+1)' |
---|---|
Input | [1,2,3] |
Output | [2,3,4] |
Run |
Command | jq 'map_values(.+1)' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": 3} |
Output | {"a": 2, "b": 3, "c": 4} |
Run |
Command | jq 'map(., .)' |
---|---|
Input | [1,2] |
Output | [1,1,2,2] |
Run |
Command | jq 'map_values(. // empty)' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": null, "b": true, "c": false} |
Output | {"b":true} |
Run |
pick(pathexps)
Emit the projection of the input object or array defined by the
specified sequence of path expressions, such that if p
is any
one of these specifications, then (. | p)
will evaluate to the
same value as (. | pick(pathexps) | p)
. For arrays, negative
indices and .[m:n]
specifications should not be used.
path(path_expression)
Outputs array representations of the given path expression
in .
. The outputs are arrays of strings (object keys)
and/or numbers (array indices).
Path expressions are jq expressions like .a
, but also .[]
.
There are two types of path expressions: ones that can match
exactly, and ones that cannot. For example, .a.b.c
is an
exact match path expression, while .a[].b
is not.
path(exact_path_expression)
will produce the array
representation of the path expression even if it does not
exist in .
, if .
is null
or an array or an object.
path(pattern)
will produce array representations of the
paths matching pattern
if the paths exist in .
.
Note that the path expressions are not different from normal
expressions. The expression
path(..|select(type=="boolean"))
outputs all the paths to
boolean values in .
, and only those paths.
del(path_expression)
The builtin function del
removes a key and its corresponding
value from an object.
getpath(PATHS)
The builtin function getpath
outputs the values in .
found
at each path in PATHS
.
setpath(PATHS; VALUE)
The builtin function setpath
sets the PATHS
in .
to VALUE
.
delpaths(PATHS)
The builtin function delpaths
deletes the PATHS
in .
.
PATHS
must be an array of paths, where each path is an array
of strings and numbers.
Command | jq 'delpaths([["a","b"]])' |
---|---|
Input | {"a":{"b":1},"x":{"y":2}} |
Output | {"a":{},"x":{"y":2}} |
Run |
to_entries
, from_entries
, with_entries(f)
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(f)
is a shorthand for to_entries | map(f) | from_entries
, useful for
doing some operation to all keys and values of an object.
from_entries
accepts "key"
, "Key"
, "name"
, "Name"
,
"value"
, and "Value"
as keys.
Command | jq 'to_entries' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": 1, "b": 2} |
Output | [{"key":"a", "value":1}, {"key":"b", "value":2}] |
Run |
Command | jq 'from_entries' |
---|---|
Input | [{"key":"a", "value":1}, {"key":"b", "value":2}] |
Output | {"a": 1, "b": 2} |
Run |
Command | jq 'with_entries(.key |= "KEY_" + .)' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": 1, "b": 2} |
Output | {"KEY_a": 1, "KEY_b": 2} |
Run |
select(boolean_expression)
The function select(f)
produces its input unchanged if
f
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]
.
arrays
, objects
, iterables
, booleans
, numbers
, normals
, finites
, strings
, nulls
, values
, scalars
These built-ins select only inputs that are arrays, objects, iterables (arrays or objects), booleans, numbers, normal numbers, finite numbers, strings, null, non-null values, and non-iterables, respectively.
Command | jq '.[]|numbers' |
---|---|
Input | [[],{},1,"foo",null,true,false] |
Output | 1 |
Run |
empty
empty
returns no results. None at all. Not even null
.
It's useful on occasion. You'll know if you need it :)
error
, error(message)
Produces an error with the input value, or with the message given as the argument. Errors can be caught with try/catch; see below.
halt
Stops the jq program with no further outputs. jq will exit
with exit status 0
.
halt_error
, halt_error(exit_code)
Stops the jq program with no further outputs. The input will
be printed on stderr
as raw output (i.e., strings will not
have double quotes) with no decoration, not even a newline.
The given exit_code
(defaulting to 5
) will be jq's exit
status.
For example, "Error: something went wrong\n"|halt_error(1)
.
$__loc__
Produces an object with a "file" key and a "line" key, with
the filename and line number where $__loc__
occurs, as
values.
Command | jq 'try error("\($__loc__)") catch .' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | "{\"file\":\"<top-level>\",\"line\":1}" |
Run |
paths
, paths(node_filter)
paths
outputs the paths to all the elements in its input
(except it does not output the empty list, representing .
itself).
paths(f)
outputs the paths to any values for which f
is true
.
That is, paths(type == "number")
outputs the paths to all numeric
values.
add
, add(generator)
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
.
add(generator)
operates on the given generator rather than
the input.
any
, any(condition)
, any(generator; condition)
The filter any
takes as input an array of boolean values,
and produces true
as output if any of the elements of
the array are true
.
If the input is an empty array, any
returns false
.
The any(condition)
form applies the given condition to the
elements of the input array.
The any(generator; condition)
form applies the given
condition to all the outputs of the given generator.
all
, all(condition)
, all(generator; condition)
The filter all
takes as input an array of boolean values,
and produces true
as output if all of the elements of
the array are true
.
The all(condition)
form applies the given condition to the
elements of the input array.
The all(generator; condition)
form applies the given
condition to all the outputs of the given generator.
If the input is an empty array, all
returns true
.
flatten
, flatten(depth)
The filter flatten
takes as input an array of nested arrays,
and produces a flat array in which all arrays inside the original
array have been recursively replaced by their values. You can pass
an argument to it to specify how many levels of nesting to flatten.
flatten(2)
is like flatten
, but going only up to two
levels deep.
range(upto)
, range(from; upto)
, range(from; upto; by)
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.
The one argument form generates numbers from 0 to the given number, with an increment of 1.
The two argument form generates numbers from from
to upto
with an increment of 1.
The three argument form generates numbers from
to upto
with an increment of by
.
Command | jq 'range(2; 4)' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | 2 |
3 | |
Run |
Command | jq '[range(2; 4)]' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | [2,3] |
Run |
Command | jq '[range(4)]' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | [0,1,2,3] |
Run |
Command | jq '[range(0; 10; 3)]' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | [0,3,6,9] |
Run |
Command | jq '[range(0; 10; -1)]' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | [] |
Run |
Command | jq '[range(0; -5; -1)]' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | [0,-1,-2,-3,-4] |
Run |
floor
The floor
function returns the floor of its numeric input.
Command | jq 'floor' |
---|---|
Input | 3.14159 |
Output | 3 |
Run |
sqrt
The sqrt
function returns the square root of its numeric input.
Command | jq 'sqrt' |
---|---|
Input | 9 |
Output | 3 |
Run |
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.
Command | jq '.[] | tonumber' |
---|---|
Input | [1, "1"] |
Output | 1 |
1 | |
Run |
tostring
The tostring
function prints its input as a
string. Strings are left unchanged, and all other values are
JSON-encoded.
Command | jq '.[] | tostring' |
---|---|
Input | [1, "1", [1]] |
Output | "1" |
"1" | |
"[1]" | |
Run |
type
The type
function returns the type of its argument as a
string, which is one of null, boolean, number, string, array
or object.
Command | jq 'map(type)' |
---|---|
Input | [0, false, [], {}, null, "hello"] |
Output | ["number", "boolean", "array", "object", "null", "string"] |
Run |
infinite
, nan
, isinfinite
, isnan
, isfinite
, isnormal
Some arithmetic operations can yield infinities and "not a
number" (NaN) values. The isinfinite
builtin returns true
if its input is infinite. The isnan
builtin returns true
if its input is a NaN. The infinite
builtin returns a
positive infinite value. The nan
builtin returns a NaN.
The isnormal
builtin returns true if its input is a normal
number.
Note that division by zero raises an error.
Currently most arithmetic operations operating on infinities, NaNs, and sub-normals do not raise errors.
sort
, sort_by(path_expression)
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(f)
compares
two elements by comparing the result of f
on each element.
When f
produces multiple values, it firstly compares the
first values, and the second values if the first values are
equal, and so on.
Command | jq 'sort' |
---|---|
Input | [8,3,null,6] |
Output | [null,3,6,8] |
Run |
Command | jq 'sort_by(.foo)' |
---|---|
Input | [{"foo":4, "bar":10}, {"foo":3, "bar":10}, {"foo":2, "bar":1}] |
Output | [{"foo":2, "bar":1}, {"foo":3, "bar":10}, {"foo":4, "bar":10}] |
Run |
Command | jq 'sort_by(.foo, .bar)' |
---|---|
Input | [{"foo":4, "bar":10}, {"foo":3, "bar":20}, {"foo":2, "bar":1}, {"foo":3, "bar":10}] |
Output | [{"foo":2, "bar":1}, {"foo":3, "bar":10}, {"foo":3, "bar":20}, {"foo":4, "bar":10}] |
Run |
group_by(path_expression)
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.
Command | 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}]] |
Run |
min
, max
, min_by(path_exp)
, max_by(path_exp)
Find the minimum or maximum element of the input array.
The min_by(path_exp)
and max_by(path_exp)
functions allow
you to specify a particular field or property to examine, e.g.
min_by(.foo)
finds the object with the smallest foo
field.
unique
, unique_by(path_exp)
The unique
function takes as input an array and produces
an array of the same elements, in sorted order, with
duplicates removed.
The unique_by(path_exp)
function will keep only one element
for each value obtained by applying the argument. Think of it
as making an array by taking one element out of every group
produced by group
.
Command | jq 'unique' |
---|---|
Input | [1,2,5,3,5,3,1,3] |
Output | [1,2,3,5] |
Run |
Command | jq 'unique_by(.foo)' |
---|---|
Input | [{"foo": 1, "bar": 2}, {"foo": 1, "bar": 3}, {"foo": 4, "bar": 5}] |
Output | [{"foo": 1, "bar": 2}, {"foo": 4, "bar": 5}] |
Run |
Command | jq 'unique_by(length)' |
---|---|
Input | ["chunky", "bacon", "kitten", "cicada", "asparagus"] |
Output | ["bacon", "chunky", "asparagus"] |
Run |
reverse
This function reverses an array.
Command | jq 'reverse' |
---|---|
Input | [1,2,3,4] |
Output | [4,3,2,1] |
Run |
contains(element)
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 if 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.
Command | jq 'contains("bar")' |
---|---|
Input | "foobar" |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq 'contains(["baz", "bar"])' |
---|---|
Input | ["foobar", "foobaz", "blarp"] |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq 'contains(["bazzzzz", "bar"])' |
---|---|
Input | ["foobar", "foobaz", "blarp"] |
Output | false |
Run |
Command | jq 'contains({foo: 12, bar: [{barp: 12}]})' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo": 12, "bar":[1,2,{"barp":12, "blip":13}]} |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq 'contains({foo: 12, bar: [{barp: 15}]})' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo": 12, "bar":[1,2,{"barp":12, "blip":13}]} |
Output | false |
Run |
indices(s)
Outputs an array containing the indices in .
where s
occurs. The input may be an array, in which case if s
is an
array then the indices output will be those where all elements
in .
match those of s
.
index(s)
, rindex(s)
Outputs the index of the first (index
) or last (rindex
)
occurrence of s
in the input.
Command | jq 'index(", ")' |
---|---|
Input | "a,b, cd, efg, hijk" |
Output | 3 |
Run |
Command | jq 'index(1)' |
---|---|
Input | [0,1,2,1,3,1,4] |
Output | 1 |
Run |
Command | jq 'index([1,2])' |
---|---|
Input | [0,1,2,3,1,4,2,5,1,2,6,7] |
Output | 1 |
Run |
Command | jq 'rindex(", ")' |
---|---|
Input | "a,b, cd, efg, hijk" |
Output | 12 |
Run |
Command | jq 'rindex(1)' |
---|---|
Input | [0,1,2,1,3,1,4] |
Output | 5 |
Run |
Command | jq 'rindex([1,2])' |
---|---|
Input | [0,1,2,3,1,4,2,5,1,2,6,7] |
Output | 8 |
Run |
inside
The filter inside(b)
will produce true if the input is
completely contained within b. It is, essentially, an
inversed version of contains
.
Command | jq 'inside("foobar")' |
---|---|
Input | "bar" |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq 'inside(["foobar", "foobaz", "blarp"])' |
---|---|
Input | ["baz", "bar"] |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq 'inside(["foobar", "foobaz", "blarp"])' |
---|---|
Input | ["bazzzzz", "bar"] |
Output | false |
Run |
Command | jq 'inside({"foo": 12, "bar":[1,2,{"barp":12, "blip":13}]})' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo": 12, "bar": [{"barp": 12}]} |
Output | true |
Run |
Command | jq 'inside({"foo": 12, "bar":[1,2,{"barp":12, "blip":13}]})' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo": 12, "bar": [{"barp": 15}]} |
Output | false |
Run |
startswith(str)
Outputs true
if . starts with the given string argument.
Command | jq '[.[]|startswith("foo")]' |
---|---|
Input | ["fo", "foo", "barfoo", "foobar", "barfoob"] |
Output | [false, true, false, true, false] |
Run |
endswith(str)
Outputs true
if . ends with the given string argument.
Command | jq '[.[]|endswith("foo")]' |
---|---|
Input | ["foobar", "barfoo"] |
Output | [false, true] |
Run |
combinations
, combinations(n)
Outputs all combinations of the elements of the arrays in the
input array. If given an argument n
, it outputs all combinations
of n
repetitions of the input array.
ltrimstr(str)
Outputs its input with the given prefix string removed, if it starts with it.
Command | jq '[.[]|ltrimstr("foo")]' |
---|---|
Input | ["fo", "foo", "barfoo", "foobar", "afoo"] |
Output | ["fo","","barfoo","bar","afoo"] |
Run |
rtrimstr(str)
Outputs its input with the given suffix string removed, if it ends with it.
Command | jq '[.[]|rtrimstr("foo")]' |
---|---|
Input | ["fo", "foo", "barfoo", "foobar", "foob"] |
Output | ["fo","","bar","foobar","foob"] |
Run |
trim
, ltrim
, rtrim
trim
trims both leading and trailing whitespace.
ltrim
trims only leading (left side) whitespace.
rtrim
trims only trailing (right side) whitespace.
Whitespace characters are the usual " "
, "\n"
"\t"
, "\r"
and also all characters in the Unicode character database with the
whitespace property. Note that what considers whitespace might
change in the future.
Command | jq 'trim, ltrim, rtrim' |
---|---|
Input | " abc " |
Output | "abc" |
"abc " | |
" abc" | |
Run |
explode
Converts an input string into an array of the string's codepoint numbers.
Command | jq 'explode' |
---|---|
Input | "foobar" |
Output | [102,111,111,98,97,114] |
Run |
implode
The inverse of explode.
Command | jq 'implode' |
---|---|
Input | [65, 66, 67] |
Output | "ABC" |
Run |
split(str)
Splits an input string on the separator argument.
split
can also split on regex matches when called with
two arguments (see the regular expressions section below).
Command | jq 'split(", ")' |
---|---|
Input | "a, b,c,d, e, " |
Output | ["a","b,c,d","e",""] |
Run |
join(str)
Joins the array of elements given as input, using the
argument as separator. It is the inverse of split
: that is,
running split("foo") | join("foo")
over any input string
returns said input string.
Numbers and booleans in the input are converted to strings. Null values are treated as empty strings. Arrays and objects in the input are not supported.
ascii_downcase
, ascii_upcase
Emit a copy of the input string with its alphabetic characters (a-z and A-Z) converted to the specified case.
Command | jq 'ascii_upcase' |
---|---|
Input | "useful but not for é" |
Output | "USEFUL BUT NOT FOR é" |
Run |
while(cond; update)
The while(cond; update)
function allows you to repeatedly
apply an update to .
until cond
is false.
Note that while(cond; update)
is internally defined as a
recursive jq function. Recursive calls within while
will
not consume additional memory if update
produces at most one
output for each input. See advanced topics below.
Command | jq '[while(.<100; .*2)]' |
---|---|
Input | 1 |
Output | [1,2,4,8,16,32,64] |
Run |
repeat(exp)
The repeat(exp)
function allows you to repeatedly
apply expression exp
to .
until an error is raised.
Note that repeat(exp)
is internally defined as a
recursive jq function. Recursive calls within repeat
will
not consume additional memory if exp
produces at most one
output for each input. See advanced topics below.
Command | jq '[repeat(.*2, error)?]' |
---|---|
Input | 1 |
Output | [2] |
Run |
until(cond; next)
The until(cond; next)
function allows you to repeatedly
apply the expression next
, initially to .
then to its own
output, until cond
is true. For example, this can be used
to implement a factorial function (see below).
Note that until(cond; next)
is internally defined as a
recursive jq function. Recursive calls within until()
will
not consume additional memory if next
produces at most one
output for each input. See advanced topics below.
Command | jq '[.,1]|until(.[0] < 1; [.[0] - 1, .[1] * .[0]])|.[1]' |
---|---|
Input | 4 |
Output | 24 |
Run |
recurse(f)
, recurse
, recurse(f; condition)
The recurse(f)
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
When called without an argument, recurse
is equivalent to
recurse(.[]?)
.
recurse(f)
is identical to recurse(f; true)
and can be
used without concerns about recursion depth.
recurse(f; condition)
is a generator which begins by
emitting . and then emits in turn .|f, .|f|f, .|f|f|f, ... so long
as the computed value satisfies the condition. For example,
to generate all the integers, at least in principle, one
could write recurse(.+1; true)
.
The recursive calls in recurse
will not consume additional
memory whenever f
produces at most a single output for each
input.
Command | jq 'recurse(.foo[])' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo":[{"foo": []}, {"foo":[{"foo":[]}]}]} |
Output | {"foo":[{"foo":[]},{"foo":[{"foo":[]}]}]} |
{"foo":[]} | |
{"foo":[{"foo":[]}]} | |
{"foo":[]} | |
Run |
Command | jq 'recurse' |
---|---|
Input | {"a":0,"b":[1]} |
Output | {"a":0,"b":[1]} |
0 | |
[1] | |
1 | |
Run |
Command | jq 'recurse(. * .; . < 20)' |
---|---|
Input | 2 |
Output | 2 |
4 | |
16 | |
Run |
walk(f)
The walk(f)
function applies f recursively to every
component of the input entity. When an array is
encountered, f is first applied to its elements and then to
the array itself; when an object is encountered, f is first
applied to all the values and then to the object. In
practice, f will usually test the type of its input, as
illustrated in the following examples. The first example
highlights the usefulness of processing the elements of an
array of arrays before processing the array itself. The second
example shows how all the keys of all the objects within the
input can be considered for alteration.
have_literal_numbers
This builtin returns true if jq's build configuration includes support for preservation of input number literals.
have_decnum
This builtin returns true if jq was built with "decnum", which is the current literal number preserving numeric backend implementation for jq.
$JQ_BUILD_CONFIGURATION
This builtin binding shows the jq executable's build
configuration. Its value has no particular format, but
it can be expected to be at least the ./configure
command-line arguments, and may be enriched in the
future to include the version strings for the build
tooling used.
Note that this can be overridden in the command-line
with --arg
and related options.
$ENV
, env
$ENV
is an object representing the environment variables as
set when the jq program started.
env
outputs an object representing jq's current environment.
At the moment there is no builtin for setting environment variables.
transpose
Transpose a possibly jagged matrix (an array of arrays). Rows are padded with nulls so the result is always rectangular.
Command | jq 'transpose' |
---|---|
Input | [[1], [2,3]] |
Output | [[1,2],[null,3]] |
Run |
bsearch(x)
bsearch(x)
conducts a binary search for x in the input
array. If the input is sorted and contains x, then
bsearch(x)
will return its index in the array; otherwise, if
the array is sorted, it will return (-1 - ix) where ix is an
insertion point such that the array would still be sorted
after the insertion of x at ix. If the array is not sorted,
bsearch(x)
will return an integer that is probably of no
interest.
String interpolation: \(exp)
Inside a string, you can put an expression inside parens after a backslash. Whatever the expression returns will be interpolated into the string.
Command | jq '"The input was \(.), which is one less than \(.+1)"' |
---|---|
Input | 42 |
Output | "The input was 42, which is one less than 43" |
Run |
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.
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
:
Serializes 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.
@urid
:
The inverse of @uri
, applies percent-decoding, by mapping
all %XX
sequences to their corresponding URI characters.
@csv
:
The input must be an array, and it is rendered as CSV with double quotes for strings, and quotes escaped by repetition.
@tsv
:
The input must be an array, and it is rendered as TSV
(tab-separated values). Each input array will be printed as
a single line. Fields are separated by a single
tab (ascii 0x09
). Input characters line-feed (ascii 0x0a
),
carriage-return (ascii 0x0d
), tab (ascii 0x09
) and
backslash (ascii 0x5c
) will be output as escape sequences
\n
, \r
, \t
, \\
respectively.
@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.
@base64d
:
The inverse of @base64
, input is decoded as specified by RFC 4648.
Note\: If the decoded string is not UTF-8, the results are undefined.
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 "https://www.google.com/search?q=\(.search)"
will produce the following output for the input
{"search":"what is jq?"}
:
"https://www.google.com/search?q=what%20is%20jq%3F"
Note that the slashes, question mark, etc. in the URL are not escaped, as they were part of the string literal.
Command | jq '@html' |
---|---|
Input | "This works if x < y" |
Output | "This works if x < y" |
Run |
Command | jq '@sh "echo \(.)"' |
---|---|
Input | "O'Hara's Ale" |
Output | "echo 'O'\\''Hara'\\''s Ale'" |
Run |
Command | jq '@base64' |
---|---|
Input | "This is a message" |
Output | "VGhpcyBpcyBhIG1lc3NhZ2U=" |
Run |
Command | jq '@base64d' |
---|---|
Input | "VGhpcyBpcyBhIG1lc3NhZ2U=" |
Output | "This is a message" |
Run |
Dates
jq provides some basic date handling functionality, with some high-level and low-level builtins. In all cases these builtins deal exclusively with time in UTC.
The fromdateiso8601
builtin parses datetimes in the ISO 8601
format to a number of seconds since the Unix epoch
(1970-01-01T00:00:00Z). The todateiso8601
builtin does the
inverse.
The fromdate
builtin parses datetime strings. Currently
fromdate
only supports ISO 8601 datetime strings, but in the
future it will attempt to parse datetime strings in more
formats.
The todate
builtin is an alias for todateiso8601
.
The now
builtin outputs the current time, in seconds since
the Unix epoch.
Low-level jq interfaces to the C-library time functions are
also provided: strptime
, strftime
, strflocaltime
,
mktime
, gmtime
, and localtime
. Refer to your host
operating system's documentation for the format strings used
by strptime
and strftime
. Note: these are not necessarily
stable interfaces in jq, particularly as to their localization
functionality.
The gmtime
builtin consumes a number of seconds since the
Unix epoch and outputs a "broken down time" representation of
Greenwich Mean Time as an array of numbers representing
(in this order): the year, the month (zero-based), the day of
the month (one-based), the hour of the day, the minute of the
hour, the second of the minute, the day of the week, and the
day of the year -- all one-based unless otherwise stated. The
day of the week number may be wrong on some systems for dates
before March 1st 1900, or after December 31 2099.
The localtime
builtin works like the gmtime
builtin, but
using the local timezone setting.
The mktime
builtin consumes "broken down time"
representations of time output by gmtime
and strptime
.
The strptime(fmt)
builtin parses input strings matching the
fmt
argument. The output is in the "broken down time"
representation consumed by mktime
and output by gmtime
.
The strftime(fmt)
builtin formats a time (GMT) with the
given format. The strflocaltime
does the same, but using
the local timezone setting.
The format strings for strptime
and strftime
are described
in typical C library documentation. The format string for ISO
8601 datetime is "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ"
.
jq may not support some or all of this date functionality on
some systems. In particular, the %u
and %j
specifiers for
strptime(fmt)
are not supported on macOS.
SQL-Style Operators
jq provides a few SQL-style operators.
- INDEX(stream; index_expression):
This builtin produces an object whose keys are computed by the given index expression applied to each value from the given stream.
- JOIN($idx; stream; idx_expr; join_expr):
This builtin joins the values from the given stream to the given index. The index's keys are computed by applying the given index expression to each value from the given stream. An array of the value in the stream and the corresponding value from the index is fed to the given join expression to produce each result.
- JOIN($idx; stream; idx_expr):
Same as JOIN($idx; stream; idx_expr; .)
.
- JOIN($idx; idx_expr):
This builtin joins the input .
to the given index, applying
the given index expression to .
to compute the index key.
The join operation is as described above.
- IN(s):
This builtin outputs true
if .
appears in the given
stream, otherwise it outputs false
.
- IN(source; s):
This builtin outputs true
if any value in the source stream
appears in the second stream, otherwise it outputs false
.
builtins
Returns a list of all builtin functions in the format name/arity
.
Since functions with the same name but different arities are considered
separate functions, all/0
, all/1
, and all/2
would all be present
in the list.
Conditionals and Comparisons
==
, !=
The expression 'a == b' will produce 'true' if the results of evaluating
a and b are equal (that is, if they represent equivalent JSON values) and
'false' otherwise. In particular, strings are never considered equal
to numbers. In checking for the equality of JSON objects, the ordering of keys
is irrelevant. If you're coming from JavaScript, please note that jq's ==
is like
JavaScript's ===
, the "strict equality" operator.
!= is "not equal", and 'a != b' returns the opposite value of 'a == b'
if-then-else-end
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.
if A then B end
is the same as if A then B else . end
.
That is, the else
branch is optional, and if absent is the
same as .
. This also applies to elif
with absent ending else
branch.
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 like if .name == "" then A else B end
instead.
If the condition A
produces multiple results, then B
is evaluated
once for each result that is not false or null, and C
is evaluated
once for each false or null.
More cases can be added to an if using elif A then B
syntax.
Command | jq 'if . == 0 then "zero" elif . == 1 then "one" else "many" end' |
---|---|
Input | 2 |
Output | "many" |
Run |
>
, >=
, <=
, <
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.
Command | jq '. < 5' |
---|---|
Input | 2 |
Output | true |
Run |
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.
Alternative operator: //
The //
operator produces all the values of its left-hand
side that are neither false
nor null
. If the
left-hand side produces no values other than false
or
null
, then //
produces all the values of its right-hand
side.
A filter of the form a // b
produces all the results of
a
that are not false
or null
. If a
produces no
results, or no results other than false
or null
, then a
// b
produces the results of 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).
Note: some_generator // defaults_here
is not the same
as some_generator | . // defaults_here
. The latter will
produce default values for all non-false
, non-null
values of the left-hand side, while the former will not.
Precedence rules can make this confusing. For example, in
false, 1 // 2
the left-hand side of //
is 1
, not
false, 1
-- false, 1 // 2
parses the same way as false,
(1 // 2)
. In (false, null, 1) | . // 42
the left-hand
side of //
is .
, which always produces just one value,
while in (false, null, 1) // 42
the left-hand side is a
generator of three values, and since it produces a
value other false
and null
, the default 42
is not
produced.
try-catch
Errors can be caught by using try EXP catch EXP
. The first
expression is executed, and if it fails then the second is
executed with the error message. The output of the handler,
if any, is output as if it had been the output of the
expression to try.
The try EXP
form uses empty
as the exception handler.
Breaking out of control structures
A convenient use of try/catch is to break out of control
structures like reduce
, foreach
, while
, and so on.
For example:
# Repeat an expression until it raises "break" as an
# error, then stop repeating without re-raising the error.
# But if the error caught is not "break" then re-raise it.
try repeat(exp) catch if .=="break" then empty else error
jq has a syntax for named lexical labels to "break" or "go (back) to":
label $out | ... break $out ...
The break $label_name
expression will cause the program to
act as though the nearest (to the left) label $label_name
produced empty
.
The relationship between the break
and corresponding label
is lexical: the label has to be "visible" from the break.
To break out of a reduce
, for example:
label $out | reduce .[] as $item (null; if .==false then break $out else ... end)
The following jq program produces a syntax error:
break $out
because no label $out
is visible.
Error Suppression / Optional Operator: ?
The ?
operator, used as EXP?
, is shorthand for try EXP
.
Regular expressions
jq uses the Oniguruma regular expression library, as do PHP, TextMate, Sublime Text, etc, so the description here will focus on jq specifics.
Oniguruma supports several flavors of regular expression, so it is important to know that jq uses the "Perl NG" (Perl with named groups) flavor.
The jq regex filters are defined so that they can be used using one of these patterns:
STRING | FILTER(REGEX)
STRING | FILTER(REGEX; FLAGS)
STRING | FILTER([REGEX])
STRING | FILTER([REGEX, FLAGS])
where:
- STRING, REGEX, and FLAGS are jq strings and subject to jq string interpolation;
- REGEX, after string interpolation, should be a valid regular expression;
- FILTER is one of
test
,match
, orcapture
, as described below.
Since REGEX must evaluate to a JSON string, some characters that are needed
to form a regular expression must be escaped. For example, the regular expression
\s
signifying a whitespace character would be written as "\\s"
.
FLAGS is a string consisting of one of more of the supported flags:
g
- Global search (find all matches, not just the first)i
- Case insensitive searchm
- Multi line mode (.
will match newlines)n
- Ignore empty matchesp
- Both s and m modes are enableds
- Single line mode (^
->\A
,$
->\Z
)l
- Find longest possible matchesx
- Extended regex format (ignore whitespace and comments)
To match a whitespace with the x
flag, use \s
, e.g.
jq -n '"a b" | test("a\\sb"; "x")'
Note that certain flags may also be specified within REGEX, e.g.
jq -n '("test", "TEst", "teST", "TEST") | test("(?i)te(?-i)st")'
evaluates to: true
, true
, false
, false
.
test(val)
, test(regex; flags)
Like match
, but does not return match objects, only true
or false
for whether or not the regex matches the input.
match(val)
, match(regex; flags)
match outputs an object for each match it finds. Matches have the following fields:
offset
- offset in UTF-8 codepoints from the beginning of the inputlength
- length in UTF-8 codepoints of the matchstring
- the string that it matchedcaptures
- an array of objects representing capturing groups.
Capturing group objects have the following fields:
offset
- offset in UTF-8 codepoints from the beginning of the inputlength
- length in UTF-8 codepoints of this capturing groupstring
- the string that was capturedname
- the name of the capturing group (ornull
if it was unnamed)
Capturing groups that did not match anything return an offset of -1
Command | jq 'match("(abc)+"; "g")' |
---|---|
Input | "abc abc" |
Output | {"offset": 0, "length": 3, "string": "abc", "captures": [{"offset": 0, "length": 3, "string": "abc", "name": null}]} |
{"offset": 4, "length": 3, "string": "abc", "captures": [{"offset": 4, "length": 3, "string": "abc", "name": null}]} | |
Run |
Command | jq 'match("foo")' |
---|---|
Input | "foo bar foo" |
Output | {"offset": 0, "length": 3, "string": "foo", "captures": []} |
Run |
Command | jq 'match(["foo", "ig"])' |
---|---|
Input | "foo bar FOO" |
Output | {"offset": 0, "length": 3, "string": "foo", "captures": []} |
{"offset": 8, "length": 3, "string": "FOO", "captures": []} | |
Run |
Command | jq 'match("foo (?<bar123>bar)? foo"; "ig")' |
---|---|
Input | "foo bar foo foo foo" |
Output | {"offset": 0, "length": 11, "string": "foo bar foo", "captures": [{"offset": 4, "length": 3, "string": "bar", "name": "bar123"}]} |
{"offset": 12, "length": 8, "string": "foo foo", "captures": [{"offset": -1, "length": 0, "string": null, "name": "bar123"}]} | |
Run |
Command | jq '[ match("."; "g")] | length' |
---|---|
Input | "abc" |
Output | 3 |
Run |
capture(val)
, capture(regex; flags)
Collects the named captures in a JSON object, with the name of each capture as the key, and the matched string as the corresponding value.
Command | jq 'capture("(?<a>[a-z]+)-(?<n>[0-9]+)")' |
---|---|
Input | "xyzzy-14" |
Output | { "a": "xyzzy", "n": "14" } |
Run |
scan(regex)
, scan(regex; flags)
Emit a stream of the non-overlapping substrings of the input
that match the regex in accordance with the flags, if any
have been specified. If there is no match, the stream is empty.
To capture all the matches for each input string, use the idiom
[ expr ]
, e.g. [ scan(regex) ]
.
Command | jq 'scan("c")' |
---|---|
Input | "abcdefabc" |
Output | "c" |
"c" | |
Run |
split(regex; flags)
Splits an input string on each regex match.
For backwards compatibility, when called with a single argument,
split
splits on a string, not a regex.
Command | jq 'split(", *"; null)' |
---|---|
Input | "ab,cd, ef" |
Output | ["ab","cd","ef"] |
Run |
splits(regex)
, splits(regex; flags)
These provide the same results as their split
counterparts,
but as a stream instead of an array.
Command | jq 'splits(", *")' |
---|---|
Input | "ab,cd, ef, gh" |
Output | "ab" |
"cd" | |
"ef" | |
"gh" | |
Run |
sub(regex; tostring)
, sub(regex; tostring; flags)
Emit the string obtained by replacing the first match of
regex in the input string with tostring
, after
interpolation. tostring
should be a jq string or a stream
of such strings, each of which may contain references to
named captures. The named captures are, in effect, presented
as a JSON object (as constructed by capture
) to
tostring
, so a reference to a captured variable named "x"
would take the form: "\(.x)"
.
gsub(regex; tostring)
, gsub(regex; tostring; flags)
gsub
is like sub
but all the non-overlapping occurrences of the regex are
replaced by tostring
, after interpolation. If the second argument is a stream
of jq strings, then gsub
will produce a corresponding stream of JSON strings.
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 select
are in fact written
in jq).
jq has reduction operators, which are very powerful but a bit tricky. Again, these are mostly used internally, to define some useful bits of jq's standard library.
It may not be obvious at first, but jq is all about generators (yes, as often found in other languages). Some utilities are provided to help deal with generators.
Some minimal I/O support (besides reading JSON from standard input, and writing JSON to standard output) is available.
Finally, there is a module/library system.
Variable / Symbolic Binding Operator: ... as $identifier | ...
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": "First post", "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": "First post", "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 $x
set to that value. Thus as
functions as something of a
foreach loop.
Just as {foo}
is a handy way of writing {foo: .foo}
, so
{$foo}
is a handy way of writing {foo: $foo}
.
Multiple variables may be declared using a single as
expression by
providing a pattern that matches the structure of the input
(this is known as "destructuring"):
. as {realnames: $names, posts: [$first, $second]} | ...
The variable declarations in array patterns (e.g., . as
[$first, $second]
) bind to the elements of the array in from
the element at index zero on up, in order. When there is no
value at the index for an array pattern element, null
is
bound to that variable.
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.
For programming language theorists, it's more accurate to say that jq variables are lexically-scoped bindings. In particular there's no way to change the value of a binding; one can only setup a new binding with the same name, but which will not be visible where the old one was.
Command | jq '.bar as $x | .foo | . + $x' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo":10, "bar":200} |
Output | 210 |
Run |
Command | jq '. as $i|[(.*2|. as $i| $i), $i]' |
---|---|
Input | 5 |
Output | [10,5] |
Run |
Command | jq '. as [$a, $b, {c: $c}] | $a + $b + $c' |
---|---|
Input | [2, 3, {"c": 4, "d": 5}] |
Output | 9 |
Run |
Command | jq '.[] as [$a, $b] | {a: $a, b: $b}' |
---|---|
Input | [[0], [0, 1], [2, 1, 0]] |
Output | {"a":0,"b":null} |
{"a":0,"b":1} | |
{"a":2,"b":1} | |
Run |
Destructuring Alternative Operator: ?//
The destructuring alternative operator provides a concise mechanism for destructuring an input that can take one of several forms.
Suppose we have an API that returns a list of resources and events associated with them, and we want to get the user_id and timestamp of the first event for each resource. The API (having been clumsily converted from XML) will only wrap the events in an array if the resource has multiple events:
{"resources": [{"id": 1, "kind": "widget", "events": {"action": "create", "user_id": 1, "ts": 13}},
{"id": 2, "kind": "widget", "events": [{"action": "create", "user_id": 1, "ts": 14}, {"action": "destroy", "user_id": 1, "ts": 15}]}]}
We can use the destructuring alternative operator to handle this structural change simply:
.resources[] as {$id, $kind, events: {$user_id, $ts}} ?// {$id, $kind, events: [{$user_id, $ts}]} | {$user_id, $kind, $id, $ts}
Or, if we aren't sure if the input is an array of values or an object:
.[] as [$id, $kind, $user_id, $ts] ?// {$id, $kind, $user_id, $ts} | ...
Each alternative need not define all of the same variables, but all named
variables will be available to the subsequent expression. Variables not
matched in the alternative that succeeded will be null
:
.resources[] as {$id, $kind, events: {$user_id, $ts}} ?// {$id, $kind, events: [{$first_user_id, $first_ts}]} | {$user_id, $first_user_id, $kind, $id, $ts, $first_ts}
Additionally, if the subsequent expression returns an error, the alternative operator will attempt to try the next binding. Errors that occur during the final alternative are passed through.
[[3]] | .[] as [$a] ?// [$b] | if $a != null then error("err: \($a)") else {$a,$b} end
Command | jq '.[] as {$a, $b, c: {$d, $e}} ?// {$a, $b, c: [{$d, $e}]} | {$a, $b, $d, $e}' |
---|---|
Input | [{"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": {"d": 3, "e": 4}}, {"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": [{"d": 3, "e": 4}]}] |
Output | {"a":1,"b":2,"d":3,"e":4} |
{"a":1,"b":2,"d":3,"e":4} | |
Run |
Command | jq '.[] as {$a, $b, c: {$d}} ?// {$a, $b, c: [{$e}]} | {$a, $b, $d, $e}' |
---|---|
Input | [{"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": {"d": 3, "e": 4}}, {"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": [{"d": 3, "e": 4}]}] |
Output | {"a":1,"b":2,"d":3,"e":null} |
{"a":1,"b":2,"d":null,"e":4} | |
Run |
Command | jq '.[] as [$a] ?// [$b] | if $a != null then error("err: \($a)") else {$a,$b} end' |
---|---|
Input | [[3]] |
Output | {"a":null,"b":3} |
Run |
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 many of the builtins
are defined). A function may take arguments:
def map(f): [.[] | f];
Arguments are passed as filters (functions with no
arguments), 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.
This is important to understand. Consider:
def foo(f): f|f;
5|foo(.*2)
The result will be 20 because f
is .*2
, and during the
first invocation of f
.
will be 5, and the second time it
will be 10 (5 * 2), so the result will be 20. Function
arguments are filters, and filters expect an input when
invoked.
If you want the value-argument behaviour for defining simple functions, you can just use a variable:
def addvalue(f): f as $f | map(. + $f);
Or use the short-hand:
def addvalue($f): ...;
With either definition, addvalue(.foo)
will add the current
input's .foo
field to each element of the array. Do note
that calling addvalue(.[])
will cause the map(. + $f)
part
to be evaluated once per value in the value of .
at the call
site.
Multiple definitions using the same function name are allowed. Each re-definition replaces the previous one for the same number of function arguments, but only for references from functions (or main program) subsequent to the re-definition. See also the section below on scoping.
Scoping
There are two types of symbols in jq: value bindings (a.k.a., "variables"), and functions. Both are scoped lexically, with expressions being able to refer only to symbols that have been defined "to the left" of them. The only exception to this rule is that functions can refer to themselves so as to be able to create recursive functions.
For example, in the following expression there is a binding
which is visible "to the right" of it, ... | .*3 as
$times_three | [. + $times_three] | ...
, but not "to the
left". Consider this expression now, ... | (.*3 as
$times_three | [. + $times_three]) | ...
: here the binding
$times_three
is not visible past the closing parenthesis.
isempty(exp)
Returns true if exp
produces no outputs, false otherwise.
limit(n; expr)
The limit
function extracts up to n
outputs from expr
.
Command | jq '[limit(3; .[])]' |
---|---|
Input | [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] |
Output | [0,1,2] |
Run |
skip(n; expr)
The skip
function skips the first n
outputs from expr
.
Command | jq '[skip(3; .[])]' |
---|---|
Input | [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] |
Output | [3,4,5,6,7,8,9] |
Run |
first(expr)
, last(expr)
, nth(n; expr)
The first(expr)
and last(expr)
functions extract the first
and last values from expr
, respectively.
The nth(n; expr)
function extracts the nth value output by expr
.
Note that nth(n; expr)
doesn't support negative values of n
.
Command | jq '[first(range(.)), last(range(.)), nth(./2; range(.))]' |
---|---|
Input | 10 |
Output | [0,9,5] |
Run |
first
, last
, nth(n)
The first
and last
functions extract the first
and last values from any array at .
.
The nth(n)
function extracts the nth value of any array at .
.
Command | jq '[range(.)]|[first, last, nth(5)]' |
---|---|
Input | 10 |
Output | [0,9,5] |
Run |
reduce
The reduce
syntax allows you to combine all of the results of
an expression by accumulating them into a single answer.
The form is reduce EXP as $var (INIT; UPDATE)
.
As an example, we'll pass [1,2,3]
to this expression:
reduce .[] as $item (0; . + $item)
For each result that .[]
produces, . + $item
is run to
accumulate a running total, starting from 0 as the input value.
In this example, .[]
produces the results 1
, 2
, and 3
,
so the effect is similar to running something like this:
0 | 1 as $item | . + $item |
2 as $item | . + $item |
3 as $item | . + $item
Command | jq 'reduce .[] as $item (0; . + $item)' |
---|---|
Input | [1,2,3,4,5] |
Output | 15 |
Run |
Command | jq 'reduce .[] as [$i,$j] (0; . + $i * $j)' |
---|---|
Input | [[1,2],[3,4],[5,6]] |
Output | 44 |
Run |
Command | jq 'reduce .[] as {$x,$y} (null; .x += $x | .y += [$y])' |
---|---|
Input | [{"x":"a","y":1},{"x":"b","y":2},{"x":"c","y":3}] |
Output | {"x":"abc","y":[1,2,3]} |
Run |
foreach
The foreach
syntax is similar to reduce
, but intended to
allow the construction of limit
and reducers that produce
intermediate results.
The form is foreach EXP as $var (INIT; UPDATE; EXTRACT)
.
As an example, we'll pass [1,2,3]
to this expression:
foreach .[] as $item (0; . + $item; [$item, . * 2])
Like the reduce
syntax, . + $item
is run for each result
that .[]
produces, but [$item, . * 2]
is run for each
intermediate values. In this example, since the intermediate
values are 1
, 3
, and 6
, the foreach
expression produces
[1,2]
, [2,6]
, and [3,12]
. So the effect is similar
to running something like this:
0 | 1 as $item | . + $item | [$item, . * 2],
2 as $item | . + $item | [$item, . * 2],
3 as $item | . + $item | [$item, . * 2]
When EXTRACT
is omitted, the identity filter is used.
That is, it outputs the intermediate values as they are.
Command | jq 'foreach .[] as $item (0; . + $item)' |
---|---|
Input | [1,2,3,4,5] |
Output | 1 |
3 | |
6 | |
10 | |
15 | |
Run |
Command | jq 'foreach .[] as $item (0; . + $item; [$item, . * 2])' |
---|---|
Input | [1,2,3,4,5] |
Output | [1,2] |
[2,6] | |
[3,12] | |
[4,20] | |
[5,30] | |
Run |
Command | jq 'foreach .[] as $item (0; . + 1; {index: ., $item})' |
---|---|
Input | ["foo", "bar", "baz"] |
Output | {"index":1,"item":"foo"} |
{"index":2,"item":"bar"} | |
{"index":3,"item":"baz"} | |
Run |
Recursion
As described above, recurse
uses recursion, and any jq
function can be recursive. The while
builtin is also
implemented in terms of recursion.
Tail calls are optimized whenever the expression to the left of the recursive call outputs its last value. In practice this means that the expression to the left of the recursive call should not produce more than one output for each input.
For example:
def recurse(f): def r: ., (f | select(. != null) | r); r;
def while(cond; update):
def _while:
if cond then ., (update | _while) else empty end;
_while;
def repeat(exp):
def _repeat:
exp, _repeat;
_repeat;
Generators and iterators
Some jq operators and functions are actually generators in
that they can produce zero, one, or more values for each
input, just as one might expect in other programming
languages that have generators. For example, .[]
generates all the values in its input (which must be an
array or an object), range(0; 10)
generates the integers
between 0 and 10, and so on.
Even the comma operator is a generator, generating first the values generated by the expression to the left of the comma, then the values generated by the expression on the right of the comma.
The empty
builtin is the generator that produces zero
outputs. The empty
builtin backtracks to the preceding
generator expression.
All jq functions can be generators just by using builtin
generators. It is also possible to construct new generators
using only recursion and the comma operator. If
recursive calls are "in tail position" then the
generator will be efficient. In the example below the
recursive call by _range
to itself is in tail position.
The example shows off three advanced topics: tail recursion,
generator construction, and sub-functions.
Command | jq 'def range(init; upto; by): def _range: if (by > 0 and . < upto) or (by < 0 and . > upto) then ., ((.+by)|_range) else . end; if by == 0 then init else init|_range end | select((by > 0 and . < upto) or (by < 0 and . > upto)); range(0; 10; 3)' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | 0 |
3 | |
6 | |
9 | |
Run |
Command | jq 'def while(cond; update): def _while: if cond then ., (update | _while) else empty end; _while; [while(.<100; .*2)]' |
---|---|
Input | 1 |
Output | [1,2,4,8,16,32,64] |
Run |
Math
jq currently only has IEEE754 double-precision (64-bit) floating point number support.
Besides simple arithmetic operators such as +
, jq also has most
standard math functions from the C math library. C math functions
that take a single input argument (e.g., sin()
) are available as
zero-argument jq functions. C math functions that take two input
arguments (e.g., pow()
) are available as two-argument jq
functions that ignore .
. C math functions that take three input
arguments are available as three-argument jq functions that ignore
.
.
Availability of standard math functions depends on the availability of the corresponding math functions in your operating system and C math library. Unavailable math functions will be defined but will raise an error.
One-input C math functions: acos
acosh
asin
asinh
atan
atanh
cbrt
ceil
cos
cosh
erf
erfc
exp
exp10
exp2
expm1
fabs
floor
gamma
j0
j1
lgamma
log
log10
log1p
log2
logb
nearbyint
rint
round
significand
sin
sinh
sqrt
tan
tanh
tgamma
trunc
y0
y1
.
Two-input C math functions: atan2
copysign
drem
fdim
fmax
fmin
fmod
frexp
hypot
jn
ldexp
modf
nextafter
nexttoward
pow
remainder
scalb
scalbln
yn
.
Three-input C math functions: fma
.
See your system's manual for more information on each of these.
I/O
At this time jq has minimal support for I/O, mostly in the
form of control over when inputs are read. Two builtins functions
are provided for this, input
and inputs
, that read from the
same sources (e.g., stdin
, files named on the command-line) as
jq itself. These two builtins, and jq's own reading actions, can
be interleaved with each other. They are commonly used in combination
with the null input option -n
to prevent one input from being read
implicitly.
Two builtins provide minimal output capabilities, debug
, and
stderr
. (Recall that a jq program's output values are always
output as JSON texts on stdout
.) The debug
builtin can have
application-specific behavior, such as for executables that use
the libjq C API but aren't the jq executable itself. The stderr
builtin outputs its input in raw mode to stder with no additional
decoration, not even a newline.
Most jq builtins are referentially transparent, and yield constant and repeatable value streams when applied to constant inputs. This is not true of I/O builtins.
input
Outputs one new input.
Note that when using input
it is generally be necessary to
invoke jq with the -n
command-line option, otherwise
the first entity will be lost.
echo 1 2 3 4 | jq '[., input]' # [1,2] [3,4]
inputs
Outputs all remaining inputs, one by one.
This is primarily useful for reductions over a program's
inputs. Note that when using inputs
it is generally necessary
to invoke jq with the -n
command-line option, otherwise
the first entity will be lost.
echo 1 2 3 | jq -n 'reduce inputs as $i (0; . + $i)' # 6
debug
, debug(msgs)
These two filters are like .
but have as a side-effect the
production of one or more messages on stderr.
The message produced by the debug
filter has the form
["DEBUG:",<input-value>]
where <input-value>
is a compact rendition of the input
value. This format may change in the future.
The debug(msgs)
filter is defined as (msgs | debug | empty), .
thus allowing great flexibility in the content of the message,
while also allowing multi-line debugging statements to be created.
For example, the expression:
1 as $x | 2 | debug("Entering function foo with $x == \($x)", .) | (.+1)
would produce the value 3 but with the following two lines being written to stderr:
["DEBUG:","Entering function foo with $x == 1"]
["DEBUG:",2]
stderr
Prints its input in raw and compact mode to stderr with no additional decoration, not even a newline.
input_filename
Returns the name of the file whose input is currently being filtered. Note that this will not work well unless jq is running in a UTF-8 locale.
input_line_number
Returns the line number of the input currently being filtered.
Streaming
With the --stream
option jq can parse input texts in a streaming
fashion, allowing jq programs to start processing large JSON texts
immediately rather than after the parse completes. If you have a
single JSON text that is 1GB in size, streaming it will allow you
to process it much more quickly.
However, streaming isn't easy to deal with as the jq program will
have [<path>, <leaf-value>]
(and a few other forms) as inputs.
Several builtins are provided to make handling streams easier.
The examples below use the streamed form of [0,[1]]
, which is
[[0],0],[[1,0],1],[[1,0]],[[1]]
.
Streaming forms include [<path>, <leaf-value>]
(to indicate any
scalar value, empty array, or empty object), and [<path>]
(to
indicate the end of an array or object). Future versions of jq
run with --stream
and --seq
may output additional forms such
as ["error message"]
when an input text fails to parse.
truncate_stream(stream_expression)
Consumes a number as input and truncates the corresponding number of path elements from the left of the outputs of the given streaming expression.
Command | jq 'truncate_stream([[0],1],[[1,0],2],[[1,0]],[[1]])' |
---|---|
Input | 1 |
Output | [[0],2] |
[[0]] | |
Run |
fromstream(stream_expression)
Outputs values corresponding to the stream expression's outputs.
Command | jq 'fromstream(1|truncate_stream([[0],1],[[1,0],2],[[1,0]],[[1]]))' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | [2] |
Run |
tostream
The tostream
builtin outputs the streamed form of its input.
Command | jq '. as $dot|fromstream($dot|tostream)|.==$dot' |
---|---|
Input | [0,[1,{"a":1},{"b":2}]] |
Output | true |
Run |
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 previously 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).
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.
All the assignment operators in jq have path expressions on the left-hand side (LHS). The right-hand side (RHS) provides values to set to the paths named by the LHS path expressions.
Values in jq are always immutable. Internally, assignment works
by using a reduction to compute new, replacement values for .
that
have had all the desired assignments applied to .
, then
outputting the modified value. This might be made clear by this
example: {a:{b:{c:1}}} | (.a.b|=3), .
. This will output
{"a":{"b":3}}
and {"a":{"b":{"c":1}}}
because the last
sub-expression, .
, sees the original value, not the modified
value.
Most users will want to use modification assignment operators,
such as |=
or +=
, rather than =
.
Note that the LHS of assignment operators refers to a value in
.
. Thus $var.foo = 1
won't work as expected ($var.foo
is
not a valid or useful path expression in .
); use $var | .foo =
1
instead.
Note too that .a,.b=0
does not set .a
and .b
, but
(.a,.b)=0
sets both.
Update-assignment: |=
This is the "update" operator |=
. It takes a filter on the
right-hand side and works out the new value for the property
of .
being assigned to by running the old value through this
expression. For instance, (.foo, .bar) |= .+1
will build an
object with the foo
field set to the input's foo
plus 1,
and the bar
field set to the input's bar
plus 1.
The left-hand side can be any general path expression; see path()
.
Note that the left-hand side of |=
refers to a value in .
.
Thus $var.foo |= . + 1
won't work as expected ($var.foo
is
not a valid or useful path expression in .
); use $var |
.foo |= . + 1
instead.
If the right-hand side outputs no values (i.e., empty
), then
the left-hand side path will be deleted, as with del(path)
.
If the right-hand side outputs multiple values, only the first one will be used (COMPATIBILITY NOTE: in jq 1.5 and earlier releases, it used to be that only the last one was used).
Command | jq '(..|select(type=="boolean")) |= if . then 1 else 0 end' |
---|---|
Input | [true,false,[5,true,[true,[false]],false]] |
Output | [1,0,[5,1,[1,[0]],0]] |
Run |
Arithmetic update-assignment: +=
, -=
, *=
, /=
, %=
, //=
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, being the same as |= . + 1
.
Command | jq '.foo += 1' |
---|---|
Input | {"foo": 42} |
Output | {"foo": 43} |
Run |
Plain assignment: =
This is the plain assignment operator. Unlike the others, the input to the right-hand side (RHS) is the same as the input to the left-hand side (LHS) rather than the value at the LHS path, and all values output by the RHS will be used (as shown below).
If the RHS of =
produces multiple values, then for each such
value jq will set the paths on the left-hand side to the value
and then it will output the modified .
. For example,
(.a,.b) = range(2)
outputs {"a":0,"b":0}
, then
{"a":1,"b":1}
. The "update" assignment forms (see above) do
not do this.
This example should show the difference between =
and |=
:
Provide input {"a": {"b": 10}, "b": 20}
to the programs
.a = .b
and
.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, "b": 20}
.
The latter will set the a
field of the input to the a
field's b
field, producing {"a": 10, "b": 20}
.
Command | jq '.a = .b' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": {"b": 10}, "b": 20} |
Output | {"a":20,"b":20} |
Run |
Command | jq '.a |= .b' |
---|---|
Input | {"a": {"b": 10}, "b": 20} |
Output | {"a":10,"b":20} |
Run |
Command | jq '(.a, .b) = range(3)' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | {"a":0,"b":0} |
{"a":1,"b":1} | |
{"a":2,"b":2} | |
Run |
Command | jq '(.a, .b) |= range(3)' |
---|---|
Input | null |
Output | {"a":0,"b":0} |
Run |
Complex assignments
Lots more things are allowed on the left-hand side of a jq assignment than in most languages. 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."]
Modules
jq has a library/module system. Modules are files whose names end
in .jq
.
Modules imported by a program are searched for in a default search
path (see below). The import
and include
directives allow the
importer to alter this path.
Paths in the search path are subject to various substitutions.
For paths starting with ~/
, the user's home directory is
substituted for ~
.
For paths starting with $ORIGIN/
, the directory where the jq
executable is located is substituted for $ORIGIN
.
For paths starting with ./
or paths that are .
, the path of
the including file is substituted for .
. For top-level programs
given on the command-line, the current directory is used.
Import directives can optionally specify a search path to which the default is appended.
The default search path is the search path given to the -L
command-line option, else ["~/.jq", "$ORIGIN/../lib/jq",
"$ORIGIN/../lib"]
.
Null and empty string path elements terminate search path processing.
A dependency with relative path foo/bar
would be searched for in
foo/bar.jq
and foo/bar/bar.jq
in the given search path. This
is intended to allow modules to be placed in a directory along
with, for example, version control files, README files, and so on,
but also to allow for single-file modules.
Consecutive components with the same name are not allowed to avoid
ambiguities (e.g., foo/foo
).
For example, with -L$HOME/.jq
a module foo
can be found in
$HOME/.jq/foo.jq
and $HOME/.jq/foo/foo.jq
.
If .jq
exists in the user's home directory, and is a file (not a
directory), it is automatically sourced into the main program.
import RelativePathString as NAME [<metadata>];
Imports a module found at the given path relative to a
directory in a search path. A .jq
suffix will be added to
the relative path string. The module's symbols are prefixed
with NAME::
.
The optional metadata must be a constant jq expression. It
should be an object with keys like homepage
and so on. At
this time jq only uses the search
key/value of the metadata.
The metadata is also made available to users via the
modulemeta
builtin.
The search
key in the metadata, if present, should have a
string or array value (array of strings); this is the search
path to be prefixed to the top-level search path.
include RelativePathString [<metadata>];
Imports a module found at the given path relative to a
directory in a search path as if it were included in place. A
.jq
suffix will be added to the relative path string. The
module's symbols are imported into the caller's namespace as
if the module's content had been included directly.
The optional metadata must be a constant jq expression. It
should be an object with keys like homepage
and so on. At
this time jq only uses the search
key/value of the metadata.
The metadata is also made available to users via the
modulemeta
builtin.
import RelativePathString as $NAME [<metadata>];
Imports a JSON file found at the given path relative to a
directory in a search path. A .json
suffix will be added to
the relative path string. The file's data will be available
as $NAME::NAME
.
The optional metadata must be a constant jq expression. It
should be an object with keys like homepage
and so on. At
this time jq only uses the search
key/value of the metadata.
The metadata is also made available to users via the
modulemeta
builtin.
The search
key in the metadata, if present, should have a
string or array value (array of strings); this is the search
path to be prefixed to the top-level search path.
module <metadata>;
This directive is entirely optional. It's not required for
proper operation. It serves only the purpose of providing
metadata that can be read with the modulemeta
builtin.
The metadata must be a constant jq expression. It should be
an object with keys like homepage
. At this time jq doesn't
use this metadata, but it is made available to users via the
modulemeta
builtin.
modulemeta
Takes a module name as input and outputs the module's metadata
as an object, with the module's imports (including metadata)
as an array value for the deps
key and the module's defined
functions as an array value for the defs
key.
Programs can use this to query a module's metadata, which they could then use to, for example, search for, download, and install missing dependencies.
Colors
To configure alternative colors just set the JQ_COLORS
environment variable to colon-delimited list of partial terminal
escape sequences like "1;31"
, in this order:
- color for
null
- color for
false
- color for
true
- color for numbers
- color for strings
- color for arrays
- color for objects
- color for object keys
The default color scheme is the same as setting
JQ_COLORS="0;90:0;39:0;39:0;39:0;32:1;39:1;39:1;34"
.
This is not a manual for VT100/ANSI escapes. However, each of these color specifications should consist of two numbers separated by a semi-colon, where the first number is one of these:
- 1 (bright)
- 2 (dim)
- 4 (underscore)
- 5 (blink)
- 7 (reverse)
- 8 (hidden)
and the second is one of these:
- 30 (black)
- 31 (red)
- 32 (green)
- 33 (yellow)
- 34 (blue)
- 35 (magenta)
- 36 (cyan)
- 37 (white)
Comments
You can write comments in your jq filters using
#
.A
#
character (not part of a string) starts a comment. All characters from#
to the end of the line are ignored.If the end of the line is preceded by an odd number of backslash characters, the following line is also considered part of the comment and is ignored.
For example, the following code outputs
[1,3,4,7]
Backslash continuing the comment on the next line can be useful when writing the "shebang" for a jq script:
The
exec
line is considered a comment by jq, so it is ignored. But it is not ignored bysh
, since insh
a backslash at the end of the line does not continue the comment. With this trick, when the script is invoked astotal 1 2
,/bin/sh -- /path/to/total 1 2
will be run, andsh
will then runexec jq --args -MRnf /path/to/total -- 1 2
replacing itself with ajq
interpreter invoked with the specified options (-M
,-R
,-n
,--args
), that evaluates the current file ($0
), with the arguments ($@
) that were passed tosh
.