CODEWITHSUNDEEP
jsonjq
Fran
Fran

Reputation: 351

How check if there is an array or an object in jq?

For example, I want to extract the values from a key, but that key sometimes contains an object (I mean just one value) or sometimes contains an array (i mean multiples values). HOw check if there is an array or there is an object? thanks.

Upvotes: 34

Views: 25341

Answers (3)

Christian Bongiorno
Christian Bongiorno

Reputation: 5648

A more concise, but probably slightly slower:

... | [.] | flatten(1) | ...

So, if it's not an array, it now is. If it is, strip the layer off we just added

Upvotes: 1

Brewster Kahle
Brewster Kahle

Reputation: 181

I have fields that are sometimes strings sometimes arrays and I want to iterate over them. This handles this case:

... | if type=="string" then [.] else . end | .[] | ...

Upvotes: 17

Hans Z.
Hans Z.

Reputation: 53928

Use the type function:

type
The type function returns the type of its argument as a string, which is one of null, boolean, number, string, array or object.

Example 1:

echo '[0, false, [], {}, null, "hello"]' | jq 'map(type)'
[
  "number",
  "boolean",
  "array",
  "object",
  "null",
  "string"
]

Example 2:

echo '[0,1]' | jq 'if type=="array" then "yes" else "no" end'
"yes"

Example 3:

echo '{"0":0,"1":1}' | jq 'if type=="array" then "yes" else "no" end'
"no"

Upvotes: 40

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