jq Filters and Transformations

jq•Permalink

Advanced jq patterns for regex, booleans, dates, math, recursive descent, filtering, and output shaping.

View

Standard Detailed Compact

Export

Copy the compact sheet, download it, or print it.

Download

`D` dense toggle · `C` copy all

## Boolean Logic

Logical AND

↗#

echo '[{"env":"prod","healthy":true},{"env":"dev","healthy":true}]' | jq '.[] | select(.env == "prod" and .healthy)'

# Filter items that satisfy two conditions.

Logical OR

↗#

echo '[{"role":"admin"},{"role":"editor"}]' | jq '.[] | select(.role == "admin" or .role == "owner")'

# Match either of two conditions.

Logical NOT

↗#

echo '[{"active":true},{"active":false}]' | jq '.[] | select(.active | not)'

# Invert a predicate.

Test membership with IN

↗#

echo '"b"' | jq 'IN("a", "b", "c")'

# Check whether a value appears in a stream.

## Regex and Text Processing

Test regex match

↗#

echo '"alice@example.com"' | jq 'test("@example.com$")'

# Return true if a string matches a pattern.

Get regex match details

↗#

echo '"order-123"' | jq 'match("[0-9]+")'

# Return structured regex match metadata.

Capture named regex groups

↗#

echo '"alice@example.com"' | jq 'capture("(?<user>[^@]+)@(?<domain>.+)")'

# Extract named groups into an object.

Replace first regex match

↗#

echo '"hello world"' | jq 'sub("world"; "jq")'

# Replace text using a regex pattern.

Replace all matches

↗#

echo '"a-b-c"' | jq 'gsub("-"; ":")'

# Replace every instance of a pattern.

Split with regex

↗#

echo '"a, b; c"' | jq 'splits("[,;] ?")'

# Split a string using a regex separator.

## Numbers and Math

Floor number

↗#

echo '3.9' | jq 'floor'

# Round down to nearest integer.

Ceiling number

↗#

echo '3.1' | jq 'ceil'

# Round up to nearest integer.

Round number

↗#

echo '3.6' | jq 'round'

# Round to the nearest integer.

Absolute value

↗#

echo '-42' | jq 'abs'

# Return the absolute value of a number.

Generate numeric range

↗#

jq -n '[range(0; 5)]'

# Create a sequence of integers.

Bucket numbers

↗#

echo '[3,14,27,39]' | jq 'map((./10 | floor) * 10)'

# Convert numbers into 10-point buckets.

## Dates and Time

Current Unix time

↗#

jq -n 'now'

# Get the current time as Unix epoch seconds.

Unix time to ISO string

↗#

jq -n 'now | todate'

# Format epoch seconds as an ISO-like UTC string.

ISO string to Unix time

↗#

echo '"2025-01-15T12:34:56Z"' | jq 'fromdateiso8601'

# Parse an ISO timestamp into epoch seconds.

Parse custom date format

↗#

echo '"2025-01-15 12:34:56"' | jq 'strptime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")'

# Parse a custom-formatted date string.

Format epoch as custom string

↗#

jq -n 'now | strftime("%Y-%m-%d")'

# Render timestamps using a custom format.

## Encoding and Recursion

Find all keys recursively

↗#

echo '{"a":1,"b":{"c":2}}' | jq '.. | objects | keys[]'

# Emit every key in nested objects.

Find all numbers recursively

↗#

echo '{"a":1,"b":[2,{"c":3}]}' | jq '.. | numbers'

# Emit every number in a document.

JSON-encode raw text

↗#

printf 'hello
world
' | jq -Rs '.'

# Turn raw text into a valid JSON string.

HTML-escape a string

↗#

echo '"<b>hello</b>"' | jq -r '@html'

# Escape special HTML characters.

Shell-escape a string

↗#

echo '"hello world"' | jq -r '@sh'

# Produce a shell-safe quoted string.

More in jq

jq CLI Recipes

Real-world jq commands for APIs, cloud tooling, DevOps output, reporting, logs, and shell scripting.

jq Arrays and Objects

Deep reference for jq arrays, objects, grouping, entries, path updates, reshaping, and structural manipulation.

jq Cheat Sheet

Core jq syntax, filters, selectors, arrays, objects, variables, sorting, grouping, formatting, and shell-friendly usage.

Recommended next

No recommendations yet.

Browse all sheets →