Filter json file with jq

Let's say we have the file data.json with a json compacted in one line:

$ cat data.json
{"employees":[{"name":"Shyam","email":"[email protected]"},{"name":"Bob","email":"[email protected]"},{"name":"Jai","email":"[email protected]"}]}

We can use the command jq to see it in with nicer format:

$ cat data.json | jq .
{
  "employees": [
    {
      "name": "Shyam",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    },
    {
      "name": "Bob",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jai",
      "email": "[email protected]"
    }
  ]
}

You can also see just the elements of the employeeslist (array):

$ cat data.json | jq '.employees[]'
{
  "name": "Shyam",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}
{
  "name": "Bob",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}
{
  "name": "Jai",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

But, also filter and show some data from the json file:

$ cat data.json | jq '.employees[] | { name }'
{
  "name": "Shyam"
}
{
  "name": "Bob"
}
{
  "name": "Jai"
}

NOTE: The [] after .employees is to tell jq that you are going to ask or do something with the list/array named employees.

You can also ask for specific value:

$ cat /tmp/data.json | jq '.employees[] | select(.name|test("Bob")) | { email }'
{
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

To explain a bit this:

.employees[] | will takes the list of employees and pass to the next command.

select(.name|test("Bob")) will iterate all the elements of the list and check the value of the key name and select just the ones that coincides with the test() function. In this case, the word Bob.

{ email } will add to the result dictionary the values for the key email from the results of the previous step, for each one of the results.

juanje/description.md

Filter json file with jq