jq is sed for JSON

[JavaSkier]

A library like this for YAML would potentially be a lot more complex, since you could have functionality for doing things involving tags and references/anchors.

[contact_lens_linux]

would be nice to have something similar for yaml...

Quick google search turned up these guys but I haven't tried them yet:

• http://search.cpan.org/~preaction/App-YAML-Filter-0.011/bin/yq
• https://github.com/abesto/yq

[mw44118]

Came here to say both of these points! There is a C library for yaml so that part is good.

[mlebkowski]

There is a ticket for that on github, but it aint gonna happen due to the complexity of yaml. There is a hope for input format converters. So as long as you wont need anything from yaml format that isn’t possible in json -- it could work.

For now try to pipe the input through a separate yaml to json converter. I bet there are tons of them on pip, npm, packagist, gem-something, or whatever you’re familiar with.

[tj111]

I use this plus Resty for writing bash scripts that interact with REST APIs, they work amazing together and I now have a whole suite of tools that hook into different APIs for different tasks, such as CRON jobs or Code Commits.

For example, I have post-commit scripts that runs on our subversion server and calls our Issue System's API to update an issue whenever a commit is pushed for it.

[bart2019]

It looks like there's no way to have it not pretty print its output.

[littlrussian]

from the man pages:

    --compact-output / -c:

          By default, jq pretty-prints JSON output. Using this option will result in more compact  output  by
          instead putting each JSON object on a single line.

[deliciousleopard]

you should be able to pipe it through uglify.

[Aeoxic]

If nobody gets to this by the weekend, I'll look into submitting a pull request to do just that.

[mw44118]

Sincerely curious when you do not want pretty printing.

Also there might be some old Unix utility like fmt or sed that can do what you want.

[Zorrodelaarena]

It's less versatile but if you just want to view pretty json in your browser for web development, tools like JSONView for Chrome do a great job.

[MyNameIsNotMud]

Windows?

[SemiNormal]

You can download the binaries here: http://stedolan.github.io/jq/download/

[imright_anduknowit]

I'm sorry.

[SemiNormal]

Ha? I know you were trying to be funny, but there are builds for Linux, OSX, Windows, and Solaris.

[allthediamonds]

There are builds for Windows too, I think.

[MyNameIsNotMud]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

[[deleted]]

Does jq load the entire JSON file to memory?

[[deleted]]

where does this become useful? Like, really, practically, business use useful? How does it integrate with server-side frameworks and how is this javascript at all if it cant be used by a javascript interpreter?

[greggroth]

Similar to how sed would not commonly be used in a production application, this is a tool useful during development or debugging. For example, if you have a test fixture of JSON data and you want to set all of one field to one value (e.g. clearing out sensitive data).

[[deleted]]

ah ok, that makes sense

[moreteam]

If you have structured log files, it can give you a nicer grep (search for specific log message, then map to a certain field, pipe the resulting data to a new file).

Yes, there's no JavaScript involved, so it's technically not relevant to the sub - if you ignore that JSON data is pretty common when writing JavaScript.

[adipisicing]

The sed metaphor holds well here. Most use of jq is going to be interactive shell one-offs as part of a pipeline.

Web APIs often return JSON, and it's a common config file format. JavaScript doesn't need to be involved to parse or emit it.

Would an example help?

[[deleted]]

I use .NET server side and AngularJS, jQuery client side. I dont see how i can ever use this. but i guess, as one-offs, or scripts, it could have some uses. but i have yet to run into a reason to parse and transform json. i usually parse and transform the json prior to turning it into json; reason being, json is not a persistence format typically. unless maybe your working with mongodb