The simplest and most common filter (or jq program) is ., which is the identity operator, copying the inputs of the jq processor to the output stream. Because the default behavior of the jq processor is to read JSON texts from the input stream, and to pretty-print outputs, the .

This article provides example jq expressions you can use in the expr parameter. If you're new to jq, you can use these examples as a starting point when writing your own expressions. You can test the expressions using the jq play site or the jq command-line tool.

jq is written in portable C, and it has zero runtime dependencies.

jq is a tool for transforming JSON inputs and generating JSON outputs. As a programming language, jq supports boolean and arithmetic expressions, object and array indexing; it has conditionals, functions, and even exception handling...

August 31, 2025 - In this tutorial, we’ll look at how we can alleviate this awkwardness using jq — an eloquent command-line processor for JSON.

Data in jq is represented as streams of JSON values - every jq expression runs for each value in its input stream, and can produce any number of values to its output stream.

Redirecting to jqlang.github.io

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.

The jq command-line tool is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor. It is great for parsing JSON output in BASH.

December 17, 2025 - It is versatile, allowing users to slice, filter, map, and transform structured data with ease. What sets jq apart is its ability to handle complex data structures and perform sophisticated queries and transformations, all while maintaining a simple and intuitive syntax.

September 23, 2025 - It can clean, filter, and transform JSON datasets before feeding them into AI algorithms, making it an essential tool for data scientists and ML engineers working with large-scale JSON data. Performance at Scale: jq is written in C and optimized for performance, capable of processing multi-gigabyte JSON files efficiently.

July 24, 2023 - Of course, you still might occasionally need to head to google to find a function name or check your syntax, but at least you’ll have a firm grounding in the basics. jq is a lightweight, command-line JSON processor.

Personally I tend to use jq on the command line for short and quick queries. For more complex queries (usually requiring more thought), I'll turn to jqTerm. Then in some cases, my query will be run on the command line (perhaps part of a larger workflow).

A jq program is a "filter": it takes an input, and produces an output. There are a lot of builtin filters for extracting a particular field of an object, or converting a number to a string, or various other standard tasks. Filters can be combined in various ways - you can pipe the output of ...

January 21, 2015 - JSON is a lightweight format that is nearly ubiquitous for data-exchange. jq is a command-line tool for parsing JSON. Most of the popular API and data services use the JSON data format, so we'll learn how it's used to serialize interesting information, and how to use the jq to parse it at the ...

February 19, 2026 - The original implementation of jq was in Haskell before being ported to the language C.

September 19, 2024 - Because jq is UNIX friendly it is possible to pipe data in and out of it. This can be useful for using jq as a filter or interacting with other tools. In the following pipeline cat pipes the file into jq and this is piped onto less.

November 5, 2021 - All strings must be enclosed in quotes. JSON lacks error handling and is not completely secure from hostile services or users. Due to its origins as an open standard, it has limited official support. Below is an example of a sample JSON file, which is taken from the official JSON site. ... jq was developed specifically to address the need for a JSON processor.

November 10, 2022 - We then run an extensive suite of tests against this Docker environment. These tests are Shell-based and rely heavily on two Open Source projects: JQ, “a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor”