jq

jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor.

Slackbuild

   1 cd /tmp
   2 wget https://slackbuilds.org/slackbuilds/14.2/system/jq.tar.gz
   3 tar xvzf jq.tar.gz
   4 cd jq
   5 wget https://github.com/stedolan/jq/releases/download/jq-1.4/jq-1.4.tar.gz
   6 ./jq.SlackBuild
   7 installpkg /tmp/jq-1.4-i486-1_SBo.tgz

jq-1.4-i486-1_SBo.tgz

Change values

test.json

   1 {
   2   "keyx":12,
   3   "keyz":"ddff"
   4 }

test2.json

   1 {
   2   "keyx":12,
   3   "keyz":"ddff",
   4   "arr":[1,2,3,4]
   5 }

   1 jq '.keyx = 55 | .keyz = "otherVal"' test.json
   2 # output
   3 {
   4   "keyx": 55,
   5   "keyz": "otherVal"
   6 }

Get value from key

   1 jq '.keyx' test.json 
   2 # output
   3 12
   4 
   5 jq '.arr[2]' test2.json 
   6 #output
   7 3
   8 
   9 cat test2.json | jq '.data' | sed 's/\"//g'

Curl JSON replay example

   1 curl http://api.icndb.com/jokes/random 2>/dev/null | json_reformat

   1 {
   2     "type": "success",
   3     "value": {
   4         "id": 55,
   5         "joke": "Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chuck Norris has 72... and they're all poisonous.",
   6         "categories": [
   7 
   8         ]
   9     }
  10 }

   1 curl http://api.icndb.com/jokes/random 2>/dev/null | jq '.value.joke' | sed s/\"//g
   2 curl https://www.tronalddump.io/random/quote 2>/dev/null | jq ".value" | sed s/\"//g

-  ⇤ ← Revision 7 as of 2018-06-14 22:10:13 → 
  Size: 832
  Editor: localhost
  Comment:
+   ← Revision 13 as of 2026-04-05 11:48:41 → ⇥
  Size: 1529
  Editor: vitor
  Comment:
-Deletions are marked like this.
+Additions are marked like this.
 Line 1:
+<<TableOfContents(2)>>
-Line 5:
+Line 7:
-{{{#!highlight bash
+{{{#!highlight sh
-Line 49:
+Line 51:
+jq '.arr[2]' test2.json 
#output
3

cat test2.json | jq '.data' | sed 's/\"//g'
-Line 50:
+Line 59:
+== Curl JSON replay example ==

{{{#!highlight sh
curl http://api.icndb.com/jokes/random 2>/dev/null | json_reformat 
}}}

{{{#!highlight javascript
{
    "type": "success",
    "value": {
        "id": 55,
        "joke": "Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chuck Norris has 72... and they're all poisonous.",
        "categories": [

        ]
    }
}
}}}

{{{#!highlight bash
curl http://api.icndb.com/jokes/random 2>/dev/null | jq '.value.joke' | sed s/\"//g
curl https://www.tronalddump.io/random/quote 2>/dev/null | jq ".value" | sed s/\"//g
}}}