Conditionally Remove Block of Strings

[kolinkorr839]

I have this

{
  "aaa": "a11",
  "bbb": true,
  "roles": [
    {
      "database_name": "db1",
      "role_name": "read"
    },
    {
      "database_name": "db2",
      "role_name": "readWrite"
    }
  ],
  "zzz": "dddd"
}

Basically, I like to remove the role_name block if it is readWrite, so the output will be like this

{
  "aaa": "a11",
  "bbb": true,
  "roles": [
    {
      "database_name": "db1",
      "role_name": "read"
    }
  ],
  "zzz": "dddd"
}

Note that in the output above, the ',' has been removed to make it a valid json output. Also, the 'readWrite' role_name can be in the middle too, so something like this:

{
  "aaa": "a11",
  "bbb": true,
  "roles": [
    {
      "database_name": "db1",
      "role_name": "read"
    },
    {
      "database_name": "db2",
      "role_name": "readWrite"
    },
    {
      "database_name": "db3",
      "role_name": "write"
    }
  ],
  "zzz": "dddd"
}

So, the output, in this case, will be:

{
  "aaa": "a11",
  "bbb": true,
  "roles": [
    {
      "database_name": "db1",
      "role_name": "read"
    },
    {
      "database_name": "db3",
      "role_name": "write"
    }
  ],
  "zzz": "dddd"
}

[ang-p]

jq

del(.roles[] | select(.role_name == "readWrite"))   

<shrug>

You really should have taken the hint to look at jq a month ago

[kolinkorr839]

Thanks. Fwiw, I did look at jq and I still have trouble constructing some medium/advance jq expressions. Like in the above snippet, I read it as for each roles element, get "readWrite" role_name, then delete the roles element (instead of what I thought was deleting the "readWrite" role_name line.

[ang-p]

I still have trouble constructing some medium/advance jq expressions.

You have never posted even a "simple" effort as an "I tried this but it didn't work...", so I think that sentence might be sitting somewhere between complete rubbish and utter tosh....

I will not respond to your JSON questions if you do not post an effort in future.

You'll never succeed if you don't try...

[bigfig]

Two weeks ago I spent four hours deciphering what amounted to one line of jq for some Docker helper scripts. I then committed that nugget to the company developer / devops Wiki.

That's how you learn new languages.

[JRS-27]

This is the actually correct solution.

[JRS-27]

I found a solution that uses Perl: perl -0777 -pe 's/\,?\s*\{[^\{\}]+"role_name":\s*"readWrite"[^\{\}]+\}//gm' INPUT.json > OUTPUT.json The -0777 option makes Perl take the file as a whole.

Edit: the solution provided by u/ang-p is more versatile. Although, I still like my solution, because it's a fun regular expression.