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2

I have a JSON output that contains a list of objects stored in a variable. (I may not be phrasing that right)

[
  {
    "item1": "value1",
    "item2": "value2",
    "sub items": [
      {
        "subitem": "subvalue"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "item1": "value1_2",
    "item2": "value2_2",
    "sub items_2": [
      {
        "subitem_2": "subvalue_2"
      }
    ]
  }
]

I need all the values for item2 in a array for a bash script to be run on ubuntu 14.04.1.

I have found a bunch of ways to get the entire result into an array but not just the items I need

share|improve this question
up vote 6 down vote accepted

Using :

$ cat json
[
  {
    "item1": "value1",
    "item2": "value2",
    "sub items": [
      {
        "subitem": "subvalue"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "item1": "value1_2",
    "item2": "value2_2",
    "sub items_2": [
      {
        "subitem_2": "subvalue_2"
      }
    ]
  }
]

CODE:

arr=( $(jq -r '.[].item2' json) )
printf '%s\n' "${arr[@]}"

OUTPUT:

value2
value2_2
share|improve this answer
    
Is it possible to do this from a variable instead of a file? I try to avoid excess filesystem access if I don't need it. Once I pull this array I am done with the json output. – JpaytonWPD Jan 7 '15 at 0:10
    
Have you tried something ? – Gilles Quenot Jan 7 '15 at 0:13
1  
jq . <<< "$json" it's shell (bash) related, non specific to jq – Gilles Quenot Jan 7 '15 at 0:23
1  
Missing parentheses : arr=( $(...) ) – Gilles Quenot Jan 7 '15 at 0:35
1  
Great jq command, but please don't parse command output into an array with arr=( $(...) ) (even though it happens to work with the sample input): it doesn't work as intended with embedded or leading/trailing whitespace and can result in accidental globbing. – mklement0 Jul 14 at 5:21
up vote 1 down vote

Thanks to sputnick I got to this:

arr=( $(curl -k https://localhost/api | jq -r '.[].item2') )

The JSON I have is the output from an API. All I needed to do wans remove the file argument and pipe | the output of curl to jq. Works great and saved some steps.

share|improve this answer
    
That code's actually a bit buggy. Look at what happens if you have a result element of * -- it'll get replaced with a list of files in your current directory. – Charles Duffy Oct 5 at 2:55
    
Similarly, an item2 value with whitespace in it would become more than one array element. – Charles Duffy Oct 5 at 3:02
up vote 1 down vote

The following is actually buggy:

# BAD: Output line of * is replaced with list of local files; can't deal with whitespace
arr=$( curl -k "$url" | jq -r '.[].item2' )

Instead, use:

# GOOD (with bash 4.x+), but can't detect failure
readarray -t arr < <(curl -k "$url" | jq -r '.[].item2' )

...or, even better...

# GOOD (with bash 3.x+), *and* has nonzero status if curl or jq fails
IFS=$'\n' read -r -d '' -a arr \
  < <(set -o pipefail; curl --fail -k "$url" | jq -r '.[].item2' && printf '\0')
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