Postgres get all elements where value matches from jsonb array

Question

I think I am trying something simple, but after hours I just can't get it to work. I have a table which contains a tags column, which is a jsonb array and looks like this:

[
    {
        "name": "e-commerce",
        "weight": 400
    },
    {
        "name": "management",
        "weight": 200
    },
    {
        "name": "content management",
        "weight": 200
    }
]

I now want to write a query which returns the full object to me, when the name matches the search string. So far I came up with this:

SELECT * FROM data
WHERE tags is not null
  AND EXISTS(
        SELECT FROM data ad WHERE (ad.tags -> 'name' ->> 'education')::text
    );

But I get this error:

[42883] ERROR: operator does not exist: jsonb[] -> unknown Hint: No operator matches the given name and argument type(s). You might need to add explicit type casts.

I am not sure where I should do a typecast and whether that is really the problem.

I already tried solutions from these threads, but to no avail :-(

Answer 1

If you want each matching object on a separate row, you can use jsonb_array_elements() to unnest the array of objects, then filter:

select o.obj
from data d
cross join lateral jsonb_array_elements(d.tags) o(obj)
where o.obj ->> 'name' = 'education'

That works in you have JSONB array (so the datatype of data is jsonb).

If, on the other hand, you have an array of json objects (so: jsonb[]), you can unnest instead:

select o.obj
from data d
cross join lateral unnest(d.tags) o(obj)
where o.obj ->> 'name' = 'education'

Note that this generates two rows when two objects match in the same array. If you want just one row, you can use exists instead:

select o.obj
from data d
where exists (
    select 1 from unnest(d.tags) o(obj) where o.obj ->> 'name' = 'education'
)