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jsonjq

get the first (or n'th) element in a jq json parsing

I can get the 1st element in a json inside []

$ echo '[{"a":"x", "b":true}, {"a":"XML", "b":false}]' | jq '.[1]'
{
  "a": "XML",
  "b": false
}

But if the json is already disassembled (for instance, after filtering entries using 'select'), how can I choose a single entry and avoid the error seen here?

$ echo '[{"a":"x", "b":true}, {"a":"x", "b":false},{"a":"XML", "b":false}]' | jq '.[] | select( .a == "x")'
{
  "a": "x",
  "b": true
}
{
  "a": "x",
  "b": false
}
$ echo '[{"a":"x", "b":true}, {"a":"x", "b":false},{"a":"XML", "b":false}]' | jq '.[] | select( .a == "x") | .[1]'
jq: error (at <stdin>:1): Cannot index object with number
Solution

  • You can wrap the results from select in an array:

    jq '[.[]|select(.a=="x")][0]' your.json

    Output:

    {
  "a": "x",
  "b": false
}