The “jq” is a command that’s based on the JSON processor.
It allows you to transform, slice, map, filter, or perform other operations on JSON data.
By default, jq reads JSON entities (e.g., numbers, literals) from stdin.
You can use whitespace to separate entities like 1 and 2 or true and false.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to install jq on Ubuntu, test it, or uninstall it.
How to install jq on Ubuntu
To install jq on Ubuntu, you need to run these respective commands, “sudo apt update”, “sudo apt install -y jq”, and “jq –version” (optional).
Step 1: Download package info from all configured sources
sudo apt update
Step 2: Install jq on Ubuntu
sudo apt install -y jq
Step 3: Check jq version
jq --version
Source: Ubuntu Manuals.
How to test jq on Ubuntu
1. Example JSON data
echo '{"status":"success","data":[{"name":"Tom","age":21},{"name":"Mary","age":24}]}' > test.json
2. The “.” filter prints well-formatted JSON
jq '.' test.json
3. The output of the command
{
"status": "success",
"data": [
{
"name": "Tom",
"age": 21
},
{
"name": "Mary",
"age": 24
}
]
}
4. Retrieving a specific JSON object/element
jq '.data[1].name' test.json
5. The output of the command
"Mary"
How to uninstall jq on Ubuntu
To uninstall jq on Ubuntu, you need to run the following command, “sudo apt purge –autoremove -y jq”.
How to uninstall jq:
sudo apt purge --autoremove -y jq
Further reading
How to Fix “python: can’t open file ‘manage.py’: [Errno 2] No such file or directory”