Month: April 2018

List of JSON tools for command line

Ilya Sher (B)27 Comments

I am considering making a JSON parsing and generating command line tool. Started with looking around a bit. Below is a list of existing JSON command line tools. Numbers are [GitHub stars] at the time of adding the entry.

  • jq [11126] – filter, extract, modify and output JSON or text using DSL
  • jid [4426] – “You can drill down JSON interactively by using filtering queries like jq.” (item contributed by /u/Tacticus)
  • gron [4103] – convert JSON or JSON lines (from file/stdin/url) to text (path=value) which can be processed with grep/sed/diff; the tool also supports converting back to JSON after such processing
  • jo [2209] – generate JSON based on command line arguments and stdin; can read data from files and place it as base64 encoded values
  • JSON.sh [1635] – written in shell/gawk; “traverses the JSON objects and prints out the path to the current object (as a JSON array) and then the object, without whitespace”
  • underscore-cli [1588] ‘THE “Swiss Army knife” tool for processing JSON data – can be used as a simple pretty-printer, or as a full-powered JavaScript command-line’. Added on 2019-09-30 following comment from @joeytwiddle.
  • jsawk [1239] – focused primarily on filtering and transforming a list (or an object). Update 2019-09-30: as @joeytwiddle suggested in comment, the project appears to be unmaintained and doesn’t work with recent Node.js versions. Latest commit and latest closed issue are from 2015.
  • json (by trentm) [1218] – “massaging JSON on your Unix command line”; JS-like syntax for extracting values; in-place file editing
  • jj [1037] – “JJ is a command line utility that provides a fast and simple way to retrieve or update values from JSON documents. It’s powered by GJSON and SJSON under the hood.” (item contributed by /u/RomanaOswin, 2021-03-28) (also noticed it was mentioned earlier in comments by Harald Hanche-Olsen , sorry did not see that)
  • rq [1007] – awk/sed-like tool for structured data; supports several formats, including JSON
  • dasel [774] – “Dasel (short for data-selector) allows you to query and modify data structures using selector strings. Comparable to jq / yq, but supports JSON, YAML, TOML, XML and CSV with zero runtime dependencies.” (item contributed by /u/AndydeCleyre, 2021-03-27)
  • TickTick [469] – use JSON syntax directly in bash; “This is just a fun hack”
  • jtc [427] “cli tool to extract, manipulate and transform source JSON” (item contributed by Dmitry in the comments, 2019, added 2021-03-28)
  • jshon [309] – very CLI-ish way to extract, manipulate and output the data
  • jl [308] – “a tiny functional language for querying and manipulating JSON”; visually reminds Haskell
  • faq [248]. “faq is a tool intended to be a more flexible jq, supporting additional formats. The additional formats are converted into JSON and processed with libjq”. Supports: BSON, Bencode, JSON, TOML, XML, YAML. Added on 2020-10-11.
  • jsonpp [244] – JSON pretty printer (item contributed by /u/ferbass)
  • fx [227] – conveniently run your JS code to manipulate JSON.
  • RecordStream [224] – create, manipulate and output records; supports JSON; Perl-based so grep expressions for example are in Perl.
  • JSON.awk [186] – JSON.sh fork in awk; after fork the projects added different features.
  • jp [184] – “command line interface to JMESPath” (link contributed by Evgeny Zislis)
  • json-command [143] – conveniently manipulate JSON using JS.
  • jsonv.sh [130] – convert JSON to CSV; specify paths in JSON to
  • jgrep (aka “JSON-grep”) [78] – “Command line tool and API for parsing JSON documents” in Ruby (item contributed by /u/tophlammiepie)
  • jello [61]. “Filter JSON and JSON Lines data with Python syntax”. Added on 2020-10-11.
  • jsed [48] – manipulate and extract data; somewhat similar to jsawk in mindset
  • nvim-jqx [24] “easily browse and preview json files in neovim” using Quickfix buffer (item contributed by /u/evergreengt, 2021-03-28)
  • jtbl [21] “A simple cli tool to print JSON data as a table in the terminal.”. Added on 2020-10-11.
  • yamlpath [20] “Along with providing a standard for defining YAML Paths, this project aims to provide generally-useful command-line tools which implement YAML Paths.” (item contributed by /u/AndydeCleyre, 2021-03-27)
  • jayin [10] “Piping with js at terminal”. Added on 2019-09-30 following comment from @joeytwiddle.
  • jsongrep [9] (by dsc) – extract data at given path using shell globs and output one per line
  • jc [2] – “jc is used to JSONify the output of many standard linux cli tools”. Added on 2019-10-29 following comment from Kelly Brazil.
  • jsongrep [0] (by terrycojones) – easily extract data at given path

Honourable mentions

Update 2018-09-10

I’ve added related post in which I argue that jq functionality belongs to a shell.

If you feel that some project is missing from the list, please let me know in comments below.

No, not everybody uses X

Ilya Sher (B)Leave a comment

How likely are you to give the wrong answer when everybody in the group gives the wrong answer? More likely than without the group. That’s what Asch conformity experiments have proven.

Marketing people know that. So when you get the impression  that “everybody uses X”, please be aware that it can be intentional and maybe does not match the reality. It can be just a trick. Bloggers for example, have incentives to write about X (consultants that can make money if you adopt X).

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Makers of X must continue to grow no matter what

I don’t want to accuse any specific firm or product in this post but I suspect the “coolest”, the most advertised and the most pushed down our throats products. There is no guarantee makers of X are interested in your success. They are surely interested in their own growth and success.

Hope this post increases your chances to survive next marketing attack just by being aware of yet another deceitful marketing technique.