CLI JSON processor with jq — First published in fullweb.io issue #22

cli-json-filtering-jq.md

CLI JSON processor with jq

Let’s talk about jq, the command line JSON processor.

jq works the UNIX way, and can use it the same way you use sed, grep and the likes. It is very flexible and supports a lot of options, be sure to check it’s documentation.

Here are 2 simple examples to give you an idea:

1. Piping JSON to jq:

. denotes the root of the JSON, here we return the first element of the root array

... | jq '.[0]' 

2. Filtering keys:

Only keep some keys id, message.author:

... | jq '.[0] | {id, message.author}'