Treat input as plain text lines instead of JSON.
Section: Files, Slurp, and Streams
Read raw lines as strings
bash
bash
printf 'alpha
beta
' | jq -R '.'Explanation
`-R` makes jq treat each line as a raw string.
Learn the surrounding workflow
Compare similar commands or jump into common fixes when this command is part of a bigger troubleshooting path.
Related commands
Same sheet · prioritizing Files, Slurp, and Streams
Read whole raw file as one string
Slurp plain text into one string value.
Slurp inputs into one array
Read all JSON inputs and wrap them into an array.
Convert JSON lines into array
Turn multiple JSON documents into a single array.
Use streaming parser
Process large JSON incrementally as path/value events.
Pretty-print JSON from stdin
Format JSON read from stdin with default pretty output.