Jq 2016

Introduction

jq is like sed for JSON data - you can use it to slice and filter and map and transform structured data with the same ease that sed, awk, grep and friends let you play with text. ¹

Installed version(s)

The following versions are installed and currently available on environment hpc-env/8.3:

• jq/1.6-GCCcore-8.3.0

Loading jq

To load the desired version of the module, use the module load command, e.g.

module load hpc-env/8.3
module load jq

Always remember: these commands are case-sensitive!

Using jq

To find out of how to use jqyou can just type in jq --help after loading the module to print out a help text to get you started:

$ jq --help

jq - commandline JSON processor [version -]

Usage:  jq [options] <jq filter> [file...]
        jq [options] --args <jq filter> [strings...]
        jq [options] --jsonargs <jq filter> [JSON_TEXTS...]

jq is a tool for processing JSON inputs, applying the given filter to
its JSON text inputs and producing the filter's results as JSON on
standard output.

The simplest filter is ., which copies jq's input to its output
unmodified (except for formatting, but note that IEEE754 is used
for number representation internally, with all that that implies).

For more advanced filters see the jq(1) manpage ("man jq")
and/or https://stedolan.github.io/jq

Example:

        $ echo '{"foo": 0}' | jq .
        {
                "foo": 0
        }

Some of the options include:
  -c               compact instead of pretty-printed output;
  -n               use `null` as the single input value;
  -e               set the exit status code based on the output;
  -s               read (slurp) all inputs into an array; apply filter to it;
  -r               output raw strings, not JSON texts;
  -R               read raw strings, not JSON texts;
  -C               colorize JSON;
  -M               monochrome (don't colorize JSON);
  -S               sort keys of objects on output;
  --tab            use tabs for indentation;
  --arg a v        set variable $a to value <v>;
  --argjson a v    set variable $a to JSON value <v>;
  --slurpfile a f  set variable $a to an array of JSON texts read from <f>;
  --rawfile a f    set variable $a to a string consisting of the contents of <f>;
  --args           remaining arguments are string arguments, not files;
  --jsonargs       remaining arguments are JSON arguments, not files;
  --               terminates argument processing;

Named arguments are also available as $ARGS.named[], while
positional arguments are available as $ARGS.positional[].

See the manpage for more options.

Alternatively, you can also use the jq man pages:

man jq

Documentation

The full documentation can be found here.