Thalia Archibald
7a1fd72d2d
When jq is not supplied with a program, it usually exits with an error
and usage text, except for when jq is not connected to a TTY (i.e., not
interactive), in which case a default program of `.` is used. Combined
with `-f`, it then tries to read `.` as the filename.
$ jq
jq - commandline JSON processor [version 1.7.1]
…
$ jq -f
jq - commandline JSON processor [version 1.7.1]
…
$ jq | cat
^C
$ jq -f | cat
jq: Could not open .: It's a directory
jq
jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor akin to sed,awk,grep, and friends for JSON data. It's written in portable C and has zero runtime dependencies, allowing you to easily slice, filter, map, and transform structured data.
Documentation
- Official Documentation: jqlang.github.io/jq
- Try jq Online: jqplay.org
Installation
Prebuilt Binaries
Download the latest releases from the GitHub release page.
Docker Image
Pull the jq image to start quickly with Docker.
Run with Docker
Example: Extracting the version from a package.json file
docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/jqlang/jq:latest < package.json '.version'
Example: Extracting the version from a package.json file with a mounted volume
docker run --rm -i -v "$PWD:$PWD" -w "$PWD" ghcr.io/jqlang/jq:latest '.version' package.json
Building from source
Dependencies
- libtool
- make
- automake
- autoconf
Instructions
git submodule update --init # if building from git to get oniguruma
autoreconf -i # if building from git
./configure --with-oniguruma=builtin
make clean # if upgrading from a version previously built from source
make -j8
make check
sudo make install
Build a statically linked version:
make LDFLAGS=-all-static
If you're not using the latest git version but instead building a released tarball (available on the release page), skip the autoreconf step, and flex or bison won't be needed.
Cross-Compilation
For details on cross-compilation, check out the GitHub Actions file and the cross-compilation wiki page.
Community & Support
- Questions & Help: Stack Overflow (jq tag)
- Chat & Community: Join us on Discord
- Wiki & Advanced Topics: Explore the Wiki
License
jq is released under the MIT License. jq's documentation is
licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY 3.0.
jq uses parts of the open source C library "decNumber", which is distributed
under ICU License