A higher level (do-what-i-mean) alternative to jq for filtering json?

Question

I'm looking for a tool like jq but which is easier to use for normal use cases (but less powerful), before I write one myself.

Context

I often find myself interacting with json stream, it is very natural for a program to produce a stream of JSON which other programs can filter.

jq is wonderful for complicated queries, and I know it well enough to write most of the queries I use without reference to documentation. However, for simpler things the amount of boiler plate can be a little excessive. For example look at

program | jq 'select(.field | test("match", i))'

and compare it to

program | grep -i match

Desired tool

Is there any tool which is more of a middle ground: less power but less boiler-plate.

Maybe something like:

program | json-filter --field match --filter key1,key2,key3

Answer 1

Take a look at fx 🔥

It's plain JavaScript cli JSON manipulating tool (alternative to jq) with standalone binary.

program | fx 'input => input.filter(x => ...).map(x => {a: a.x})'

Answer 2

Sometimes gron (github, >8700 stars) might help to make JSON greppable .

Then the pipeline is < my.json gron | grep -v "something-to-remove" | gron -u

The readme has much better examples.