JSON processing in command line with jq

jq is a command line JSON processor which will help you pretty-print and filter a JSON in a terminal

Format JSON

echo '{"user": {"name": "Elie", "age": 29}}' | jq .

Extract specific fields

echo '{"user": {"name": "Elie", "age": 29}}' | jq '.user.name'

Extract fields from an array

echo '[{"project": "frontend", "status": "ok"}, {"project": "backend", "status": "ko"}]' | jq '.[] | .project'

Filter an array

echo '[{"project": "frontend", "status": "ok"}, {"project": "backend", "status": "ko"}]' | jq '.[] | select(.status=="ok")'

Transform JSON

echo '{"firstName": "Elie", "lastName": "Daher"}' | jq '{fullName: (.firstName + " " + .lastName)}'

jq helps specially when we call an endpoint or a cli that returns a JSON response.