Jq Usage

Internal

• jq
• jq Concepts

Command Line Options

-r

Output raw strings, not JSON content.

Map Filters

Object Identifier-Index Filter .key

.key

The filter expects a map and produces the value associated with the key given as argument of the filter, or null if there is no such object. The value, if exists, can be a primitive, a map or an array.

cat example.json | jq '.color'

This syntax only works for "identifier-like" keys: keys that are all made of alphanumeric characters and underscore, and which do not start with a digit.

The .key syntax is actually an alias for the more generic syntax:

.["key"]

If the key contains special characters, the .key alias cannot be used, and the complete .["key"] syntax should be used:

jq '.["complex::key"]'

For:

{
  "complex::key": "something"
}

jq '.complex::key'

will fail:

jq: error: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting $end (Unix shell quoting issues?) at <top-level>, line 1:
.complex::key

while

jq '.["complex::key"]' 

will work.