Basics Commands

Get started with jq for JSON processing. Learn basic filters, pretty printing, and JSON extraction.

10 commands

Pro Tips

Use 'jq .' to pretty-print JSON, 'jq -r' for raw string output without quotes.

Use 'jq -c' for compact output - useful for JSON-per-line formats.

Commands

Compact JSON

$ cat file.json | jq -c '.'

Output compact single-line JSON

Get value by key

$ cat file.json | jq '.key'

Extract value of a specific key

List all keys

$ cat file.json | jq 'keys'

Get all keys from object

Get length

$ cat file.json | jq '.array | length'

Get length of array or object

Get multiple keys

$ cat file.json | jq '{name: .name, id: .id}'

Extract multiple keys into new object

Get nested value

$ cat file.json | jq '.parent.child'

Extract nested value

Null-safe access

$ cat file.json | jq '.key?'

Access key without error if missing

Pretty print JSON

$ cat file.json | jq '.'

Format and colorize JSON output

Raw string output

$ cat file.json | jq -r '.key'

Output raw strings without quotes

Get value type

$ cat file.json | jq '.key | type'

Get the type of a value