Windows Scripting – What is JQ?
jq is a command-line tool for filtering, parsing, and manipulating JSON data. It is a fast and lightweight alternative to grep and sed.
It can also be used to extract specific records or attribute-value pairs from a set of results. This can be useful in shell scripts or as part of a larger data ingestion process, such as from kubectl.
jq is a JSON processor
jq is a command-line tool that is used to filter, process, and transform JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data. It can also display the contents of a JSON file in a format that is easier to read. JQ can also perform complex operations on array objects. These operations include adding or subtracting values, and changing the order of an array’s fields.
The jq command-line tool uses a similar syntax as other text processing tools, such as sed, awk, and grep. It can splice, slice, filter, and map structured data with the ease that these tools let you manipulate text.
jq can be used to extract and parse data from a variety of sources, including the web. For example, it can retrieve page views for a specific Wikipedia article over time. It can also be used to parse JSON files from a local directory. This can be useful if you are working with large files or complex data.
It can parse JSON data
The jq command-line tool lets you manipulate structured data just as easily as text. You can use it to filter, map, and reshape data into the format you want. Unlike other tools, it has zero runtime dependencies and is portable across platforms.
To get started, you need to set up your JSON file. You can also import a JSON object from an API or read it directly from a file. Then, you can use a series of filters to extract information. For example, you can find how many creatures are in a sea and the total number of clams they own.
To run jq, you must have a recent version of java installed. You can check your java version by typing java -version into your command terminal. Then, you can download jq from GitHub or use the brew package manager to install it on your system. Once you have it installed, you can run it from any command line application.
It can filter JSON data
jq is a command-line tool that lets you slice and filter JSON data with the same ease that sed, awk, and grep let you play with text. It is written in portable C, and has no runtime dependencies other than java 1.8+. jq can help you parse deeply nested data formats, like artworks from the Rijksmuseum API or tweet hashtags from Twitter.
Unlike sed, jq has a function-like syntax that allows multiple definitions of the same function name. However, these functions are scoped lexically and can only be referenced by functions defined to the left of them.
jq also features reduction operators, which are powerful but a bit tricky to use. It has minimal I/O support, allowing it to read from standard input (stdin) and files named on the command line. It also has a module/library system.
It can manipulate JSON data
If you’re looking to manipulate JSON data, the jq program is a good choice. It’s an easy-to-use, high-level language that allows you to use functions as parameters. It’s similar to the Haskell and Icon programming languages, but it’s more focused on JSON processing. You can download the program from its home page and run it on your computer using a PowerShell script.
The jq program can also perform simple text substitution tasks, similar to sed. However, jq’s syntax is more flexible and can handle more complex substitutions. It has a lexically-scoped module system and some support for closures.
The jq program can parse and filter large JSON files in a streaming fashion, which makes it faster to process the data. It can also bind an array of parsed values to global variables. The slurp file option is an example of this. jq also supports the standard Boolean operators and, or, and not. These operators behave the same as JavaScript’s ==, which is called strict equality.
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