How to format a JSON string as a table using jq?
JsonBashJqJson Problem Overview
Just started out with Bash scripting and stumbled upon jq to work with JSON.
I need to transform a JSON string like below to a table for output in the terminal.
[{
"name": "George",
"id": 12,
"email": "[email protected]"
}, {
"name": "Jack",
"id": 18,
"email": "[email protected]"
}, {
"name": "Joe",
"id": 19,
"email": "[email protected]"
}]
What I want to display in the terminal:
ID Name
=================
12 George
18 Jack
19 Joe
Notice how I don't want to display the email property for each row, so the jq command should involve some filtering. The following gives me a plain list of names and id's:
list=$(echo "$data" | jq -r '.[] | .name, .id')
printf "$list"
The problem with that is, I cannot display it like a table. I know jq has some formatting options, but not nearly as good as the options I have when using printf. I think I want to get these values in an array which I can then loop through myself to do the formatting...? The things I tried give me varying results, but never what I really want.
Can someone point me in the right direction?
Json Solutions
Solution 1 - Json
Using the @tsv filter has much to recommend it, mainly because it handles numerous "edge cases" in a standard way:
.[] | [.id, .name] | @tsv
Adding the headers can be done like so:
jq -r '["ID","NAME"], ["--","------"], (.[] | [.id, .name]) | @tsv'
The result:
ID NAME
-- ------
12 George
18 Jack
19 Joe
length*"-"
To automate the production of the line of dashes:
jq -r '(["ID","NAME"] | (., map(length*"-"))), (.[] | [.id, .name]) | @tsv'
Solution 2 - Json
Why not something like :
echo '[{ "name": "George", "id": 12, "email": "[email protected]"}, { "name": "Jack", "id": 18, "email": "[email protected]"}, { "name": "Joe", "id": 19, "email": "[email protected]"}]' | jq -r '.[] | "\(.id)\t\(.name)"'
Output
12 George
18 Jack
19 Joe
Edit 1 : For fine grained formatting use tools like awk
echo '[{
"name": "George",
"id": 12,
"email": "[email protected]"
}, {
"name": "Jack",
"id": 18,
"email": "[email protected]"
}, {
"name": "Joe",
"id": 19,
"email": "[email protected]"
}]' | jq -r '.[] | [.id, .name] | @csv' | awk -v FS="," 'BEGIN{print "ID\tName";print "============"}{printf "%s\t%s%s",$1,$2,ORS}'
ID Name
============
12 "George"
18 "Jack"
19 "Joe"
Edit 2 : In reply to
> There's no way I can get a variable containing an array straight > from jq?
Why not?
A bit involved example( in fact modified from yours ) where email is changed to an array demonstrates this
echo '[{ "name": "George", "id": 20, "email": [ "[email protected]" , "[email protected]" ]
}, {
"name": "Jack",
"id": 18,
"email": [ "[email protected]" , "[email protected]" ]
}, {
"name": "Joe",
"id": 19,
"email": [ "[email protected]" ]
}]' | jq -r '.[] | .email'
Output
[
"[email protected]",
"[email protected]"
]
[
"[email protected]",
"[email protected]"
]
[
"[email protected]"
]
Solution 3 - Json
Defining headers by hand is suboptimal! Omitting headers is also suboptimal.
TL;DR
data
[{ "name": "George", "id": 12, "email": "[email protected]" },
{ "name": "Jack", "id": 18, "email": "[email protected]" },
{ "name": "Joe", "id": 19, "email": "[email protected]" }]
script
[.[]| with_entries( .key |= ascii_downcase ) ]
| (.[0] |keys_unsorted | @tsv)
, (.[] |map(.) |@tsv)
how to run
$ < data jq -rf script | column -t
name id email
George 12 george@domain.com
Jack 18 jack@domain.com
Joe 19 joe@domain.com
I found this question while summarizng some data from amazon web services. The problem I was working on, in case you want another example:
$ aws ec2 describe-spot-instance-requests | tee /tmp/ins |
jq --raw-output '
# extract instances as a flat list.
[.SpotInstanceRequests | .[]
# remove unwanted data
| {
State,
statusCode: .Status.Code,
type: .LaunchSpecification.InstanceType,
blockPrice: .ActualBlockHourlyPrice,
created: .CreateTime,
SpotInstanceRequestId}
]
# lowercase keys
# (for predictable sorting, optional)
| [.[]| with_entries( .key |= ascii_downcase ) ]
| (.[0] |keys_unsorted | @tsv) # print headers
, (.[]|.|map(.) |@tsv) # print table
' | column -t
Output:
state statuscode type blockprice created spotinstancerequestid
closed instance-terminated-by-user t3.nano 0.002000 2019-02-24T15:21:36.000Z sir-r5bh7skq
cancelled bad-parameters t3.nano 0.002000 2019-02-24T14:51:47.000Z sir-1k9s5h3m
closed instance-terminated-by-user t3.nano 0.002000 2019-02-24T14:55:26.000Z sir-43x16b6n
cancelled bad-parameters t3.nano 0.002000 2019-02-24T14:29:23.000Z sir-2jsh5brn
active fulfilled t3.nano 0.002000 2019-02-24T15:37:26.000Z sir-z1e9591m
cancelled bad-parameters t3.nano 0.002000 2019-02-24T14:33:42.000Z sir-n7c15y5p
Input:
$ cat /tmp/ins
{
"SpotInstanceRequests": [
{
"Status": {
"Message": "2019-02-24T15:29:38+0000 : 2019-02-24T15:29:38+0000 : Spot Instance terminated due to user-initiated termination.",
"Code": "instance-terminated-by-user",
"UpdateTime": "2019-02-24T15:31:03.000Z"
},
"ActualBlockHourlyPrice": "0.002000",
"ValidUntil": "2019-03-03T15:21:36.000Z",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"Tags": [],
"InstanceId": "i-0414083bef5e91d94",
"BlockDurationMinutes": 60,
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-r5bh7skq",
"State": "closed",
"ProductDescription": "Linux/UNIX",
"LaunchedAvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a",
"LaunchSpecification": {
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "default",
"AvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a"
},
"ImageId": "ami-6d27a913",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"VirtualName": "root",
"NoDevice": "",
"Ebs": {
"Encrypted": false,
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 8
}
}
],
"EbsOptimized": false,
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "default"
}
],
"Monitoring": {
"Enabled": false
},
"InstanceType": "t3.nano",
"AddressingType": "public",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"Description": "eth-zero",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"SubnetId": "subnet-420ffc2b",
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
]
},
"Type": "one-time",
"CreateTime": "2019-02-24T15:21:36.000Z",
"SpotPrice": "0.008000"
},
{
"Status": {
"Message": "Your Spot request failed due to bad parameters.",
"Code": "bad-parameters",
"UpdateTime": "2019-02-24T14:51:48.000Z"
},
"ActualBlockHourlyPrice": "0.002000",
"ValidUntil": "2019-03-03T14:51:47.000Z",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"Tags": [],
"Fault": {
"Message": "Invalid device name /dev/sda",
"Code": "InvalidBlockDeviceMapping"
},
"BlockDurationMinutes": 60,
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-1k9s5h3m",
"State": "cancelled",
"ProductDescription": "Linux/UNIX",
"LaunchedAvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a",
"LaunchSpecification": {
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "default",
"AvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a"
},
"ImageId": "ami-6d27a913",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda",
"VirtualName": "root",
"NoDevice": "",
"Ebs": {
"Encrypted": false,
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 8
}
}
],
"EbsOptimized": false,
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "default"
}
],
"Monitoring": {
"Enabled": false
},
"InstanceType": "t3.nano",
"AddressingType": "public",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"Description": "eth-zero",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"SubnetId": "subnet-420ffc2b",
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
]
},
"Type": "one-time",
"CreateTime": "2019-02-24T14:51:47.000Z",
"SpotPrice": "0.011600"
},
{
"Status": {
"Message": "2019-02-24T15:02:17+0000 : 2019-02-24T15:02:17+0000 : Spot Instance terminated due to user-initiated termination.",
"Code": "instance-terminated-by-user",
"UpdateTime": "2019-02-24T15:03:34.000Z"
},
"ActualBlockHourlyPrice": "0.002000",
"ValidUntil": "2019-03-03T14:55:26.000Z",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"Tags": [],
"InstanceId": "i-010442ac3cc85ec08",
"BlockDurationMinutes": 60,
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-43x16b6n",
"State": "closed",
"ProductDescription": "Linux/UNIX",
"LaunchedAvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a",
"LaunchSpecification": {
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "default",
"AvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a"
},
"ImageId": "ami-6d27a913",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"VirtualName": "root",
"NoDevice": "",
"Ebs": {
"Encrypted": false,
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 8
}
}
],
"EbsOptimized": false,
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "default"
}
],
"Monitoring": {
"Enabled": false
},
"InstanceType": "t3.nano",
"AddressingType": "public",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"Description": "eth-zero",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"SubnetId": "subnet-420ffc2b",
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
]
},
"Type": "one-time",
"CreateTime": "2019-02-24T14:55:26.000Z",
"SpotPrice": "0.011600"
},
{
"Status": {
"Message": "Your Spot request failed due to bad parameters.",
"Code": "bad-parameters",
"UpdateTime": "2019-02-24T14:29:24.000Z"
},
"ActualBlockHourlyPrice": "0.002000",
"ValidUntil": "2019-03-03T14:29:23.000Z",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"Tags": [],
"Fault": {
"Message": "Addressing type must be 'public'",
"Code": "InvalidParameterCombination"
},
"BlockDurationMinutes": 60,
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-2jsh5brn",
"State": "cancelled",
"ProductDescription": "Linux/UNIX",
"LaunchedAvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a",
"LaunchSpecification": {
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "default",
"AvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a"
},
"ImageId": "ami-6d27a913",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda",
"VirtualName": "root",
"NoDevice": "",
"Ebs": {
"Encrypted": false,
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 8
}
}
],
"EbsOptimized": false,
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "default"
}
],
"Monitoring": {
"Enabled": false
},
"InstanceType": "t3.nano",
"AddressingType": "",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"Description": "eth-zero",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"SubnetId": "subnet-420ffc2b",
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
]
},
"Type": "one-time",
"CreateTime": "2019-02-24T14:29:23.000Z",
"SpotPrice": "0.011600"
},
{
"Status": {
"Message": "Your spot request is fulfilled.",
"Code": "fulfilled",
"UpdateTime": "2019-02-24T15:37:28.000Z"
},
"ActualBlockHourlyPrice": "0.002000",
"ValidUntil": "2019-03-03T15:37:26.000Z",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"Tags": [],
"InstanceId": "i-0a29e9de6d59d433f",
"BlockDurationMinutes": 60,
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-z1e9591m",
"State": "active",
"ProductDescription": "Linux/UNIX",
"LaunchedAvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a",
"LaunchSpecification": {
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "default",
"AvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a"
},
"ImageId": "ami-6d27a913",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda1",
"VirtualName": "root",
"NoDevice": "",
"Ebs": {
"Encrypted": false,
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 8
}
}
],
"EbsOptimized": false,
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "default"
}
],
"Monitoring": {
"Enabled": false
},
"InstanceType": "t3.nano",
"AddressingType": "public",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"Description": "eth-zero",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"SubnetId": "subnet-420ffc2b",
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
]
},
"Type": "one-time",
"CreateTime": "2019-02-24T15:37:26.000Z",
"SpotPrice": "0.008000"
},
{
"Status": {
"Message": "Your Spot request failed due to bad parameters.",
"Code": "bad-parameters",
"UpdateTime": "2019-02-24T14:33:43.000Z"
},
"ActualBlockHourlyPrice": "0.002000",
"ValidUntil": "2019-03-03T14:33:42.000Z",
"InstanceInterruptionBehavior": "terminate",
"Tags": [],
"Fault": {
"Message": "Invalid device name /dev/sda",
"Code": "InvalidBlockDeviceMapping"
},
"BlockDurationMinutes": 60,
"SpotInstanceRequestId": "sir-n7c15y5p",
"State": "cancelled",
"ProductDescription": "Linux/UNIX",
"LaunchedAvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a",
"LaunchSpecification": {
"Placement": {
"Tenancy": "default",
"AvailabilityZone": "eu-north-1a"
},
"ImageId": "ami-6d27a913",
"BlockDeviceMappings": [
{
"DeviceName": "/dev/sda",
"VirtualName": "root",
"NoDevice": "",
"Ebs": {
"Encrypted": false,
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"VolumeType": "gp2",
"VolumeSize": 8
}
}
],
"EbsOptimized": false,
"SecurityGroups": [
{
"GroupName": "default"
}
],
"Monitoring": {
"Enabled": false
},
"InstanceType": "t3.nano",
"AddressingType": "public",
"NetworkInterfaces": [
{
"DeviceIndex": 0,
"Description": "eth-zero",
"NetworkInterfaceId": "",
"DeleteOnTermination": true,
"SubnetId": "subnet-420ffc2b",
"AssociatePublicIpAddress": true
}
]
},
"Type": "one-time",
"CreateTime": "2019-02-24T14:33:42.000Z",
"SpotPrice": "0.011600"
}
]
}
Solution 4 - Json
The problem with the answers above is they only work if the fields are all about the same width.
To avoid this issue, the Linux column command could be used:
// input.json
[
{
"name": "George",
"id": "a very very long field",
"email": "[email protected]"
},
{
"name": "Jack",
"id": 18,
"email": "[email protected]"
},
{
"name": "Joe",
"id": 19,
"email": "[email protected]"
}
]
Then:
▶ jq -r '.[] | [.id, .name] | @tsv' input.json | column -ts $'\t'
a very very long field George
18 Jack
19 Joe
Solution 5 - Json
I made a mix with all responses to get all this behaviours
- create header table
- handle long fields
- create a function to reuse
function bash
function jsonArrayToTable(){
jq -r '(.[0] | ([keys[] | .] |(., map(length*"-")))), (.[] | ([keys[] as $k | .[$k]])) | @tsv' | column -t -s $'\t'
}
Sample use
echo '[{"key1":"V1.1", "key2":"V2.1"}, {"keyA":"V1.2", "key2":"V2.2"}]' | jsonArrayToTable
output
key1 key2
---- ----
V1.1 V2.1
V2.2 V1.2
Solution 6 - Json
If the values don't contain spaces, this might be helpful:
read -r -a data <<<'name1 value1 name2 value2'
echo "name value"
echo "=========="
for ((i=0; i<${#data[@]}; i+=2)); do
echo ${data[$i]} ${data[$((i+1))]}
done
Output
name value
==========
name1 value1
name2 value2
Solution 7 - Json
If you want to generate an HTML table instead of a table for terminal output:
echo '[{ "name": "George", "id": 12, "email": "[email protected]"}, { "name": "Jack", "id": 18, "email": "[email protected]"}, { "name": "Joe", "id": 19, "email": "[email protected]"}]' | jq -r 'map("<tr><td>" + .name + "</td><td>" + (.id | tostring) + "</td></tr>") | ["<table>"] + . + ["</table>"] | .[]'
Output:
<table>
<tr><td>George</td><td>12</td></tr>
<tr><td>Jack</td><td>18</td></tr>
<tr><td>Joe</td><td>19</td></tr>
</table>
Solution 8 - Json
More simple implement:
jq -r '(.[0]|keys_unsorted|(.,map(length*"-"))),.[]|map(.)|@tsv'|column -ts $'\t'
you can add the following jq function into ~/.jq:
def pretty_table:
(.[0]|keys_unsorted|(.,map(length*"-"))),.[]|map(.)|@tsv
;
and then run:
cat apps.json | jq -r pretty_table | column -ts $'\t'