Category: JSONPath

All about my JSONPath implementation (https://github.com/brunerd/jsonpath)

brunerd tools summer 2022 updates

brunerd

Hey there, it’s summer 2022 and I wanted to share some updates on my shell tools for Mac admins.

No breaking changes or anything huge, but some nice incremental improvements all the same. When the JSONPath spec is finalized I’ll give jpt a more considerable under the hood improvement. For now though, I’m pretty happy with tweaking their behaviors to act like you’d expect (print help and exit if no input detected), to get out of your way when you need to debug your scripts (xtrace is now disabled inside them) and to try to understand what you mean when you ask them a question (key path queries now accepted). Because the tools and technologies we make should serve us, not the other way around. I hope these tools can save you time, energy, sanity or all the above!

• jpt the “JSON Power Tool” has been updated to v1.0.2 with all the nice additions mentioned. If you don’t know already jpt can parse, query, and modify JSON every which way. It can be used as both a standalone utility as well as a function to be embedded into your shell scripts, without any other dependencies.

• ljt the “little JSON tool” is jpt‘s smaller sibling weighing in at only 2k. While it lacks the transformational powers of jpt it can easily pluck a value out of JSON up to 2GB big and output results up to 720MB. It has been updated to v1.0.7 because dang it, even a small script can have just as many bugs as the big ones. Sometimes more if you’re not careful!

Both jpt and ljt now accept ye olde NextStep “keypath” expressions to help win over masochists who might still use plutil to work with JSON! 😁 (I kid, I kid!)

• jse, the “JSON string encoder” does this one thing and does it well. It can be used in conjunction with jpt when taking in arbitrary data that needs encoding only. It’s a svelte 1.4k (in minified form) and runs considerably faster that jpt, so it’s ideal for multiple invocations, such as when preparing input data for a JSON Patch document. v1.0.2 is available here

• shui lets you interact with your users with AppleScript but in the comfort of familiar shell syntax! You don’t need to know a line of AppleScript, although it does have the option to output it if you want to learn. Save time, brain cells and hair with shui, while you keep on trucking in shell script. It has been updated to v20220704.

P.S. All these tools still work in the macOS Ventura beta 😅

Improvisational jpt: Processing Apple Developer JSON transcript files

brunerd

If you’ve downloaded the Developer app for the Mac there’s a trove of JSON transcripts cached in your home folder at ~/Library/Group Containers/group.developer.apple.wwdc/Library/Caches/Transcripts

Being curious I took a look at them using my JSON Power Tool jpt. In it’s default mode it will “pretty print” JSON or in Javascript parlance “stringify” them with a two space indent per nesting level. Inside it can be seen the transcripts are arrays of arrays inisde a uniquely named object. The 1st entry of the array is the time in seconds and the 2nd entry is the string we want.

Arrays of arrays

One of jpt’s cool features is that it supports the venerable yet nascent JSONPath query syntax. Using JSONPath we can use the recursive operator .. to go straight to the transcript object without needing determine the unique name of the parent object, then we want all the array within there [*]and inside those array we want the second entry of the 0 based array [1]. The query looks like this $..transcript[*][1]

Just text please

The query is single quoted so the shell doesn’t interpret the $ as the beginning of a variable name. The -T option for jpt it outputs text without quotes. The default output mode for jpt is JSON (double quoted strings). I added all sorts of other niceties to the script, as you’ll see below. The results are output to your ~/Desktop in a folder called Developer Transcripts

#!/bin/bash
: <<-LICENSE_BLOCK
Developer Transcript Extractor Copyright (c) 2022 Joel Bruner. Licensed under the MIT License. Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
LICENSE_BLOCK

############
# VARIABLES #
############

destinationFolderName="Developer Transcripts"
destinationPath="${HOME}/Desktop/${destinationFolderName}"

#you'll need to download the Developer app and launch it: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-developer/id640199958
transcriptPaths=$(find "${HOME}/Library/Group Containers/group.developer.apple.wwdc/Library/Caches/Transcripts/ByID" -name '*json')
contentsJSON="${HOME}/Library/Group Containers/group.developer.apple.wwdc/Library/Caches/contents.json"

########
# MAIN #
########

#either jpt should be installed or the function jpt.min can be pasted in here
if ! which jpt &>/dev/null; then
	echo "Please install jpt or embed jpt.min in this script: https://github.com/brunerd/jpt"
	exit 1
fi

#ensure the destination folder exists
[ ! -d "${destinationPath}" ] && mkdir "${destinationPath}"

#ignore spaces in file paths
IFS=$'\n'

#loop through each transcript json file
for transcriptPath in ${transcriptPaths}; do
	#id is just the file name without the path and extension
	id=$(cut -d. -f1 <<< "${transcriptPath##*/}")
	#a couple of nice-to-haves
	title=$(jpt -T '$.contents[?(@.id == "'"${id}"'")].title' "${contentsJSON}")
	description=$(jpt -T '$.contents[?(@.id == "'"${id}"'")].description' "${contentsJSON}")
	#change \ (disallowed in Unix) to : (Disallowed in Finder byt allowed in Unix)
	title=${title//\//:}
	url=$(jpt -T '$.contents[?(@.id == "'"${id}"'")].webPermalink' "${contentsJSON}")

	#"wwdc" always has the year in the id but not tech-talks or insights
	if ! grep -q -i wwdc <<< "$id"; then
		year="$(jpt '$.contents[?(@.id == "'"${id}"'")].originalPublishingDate' "${contentsJSON}" | date -j -r 1593018000 +"%Y")-"
		filename="${year}${id} - ${title}.txt"
	else
		filename="${id} - ${title}.txt"
	fi

	#put the ID and Title, the URL and Description at the top of the transcript
	echo "${id} - ${title}" > "${destinationPath}"/"${filename}"
	echo -e "${url}\n" >> "${destinationPath}"/"${filename}"
	echo -e "Description:\n${description}\n\nTranscript:" >> "${destinationPath}"/"${filename}"
	
	#append the transcript extract
	jpt -T '$..transcript[*][1]' "${transcriptPath}" >> "${destinationPath}"/"${filename}"

	#just echo out our progress
	echo "${destinationPath}"/"${filename}"
done

The final result is sortable folder of text files that you can easily QuickLook through.

Some serviceably readable contents!

So there you go! Some surprise JSON transcript files from the Apple Developer app, made me wonder how someone would turn them into human readable files. It turned out it was a fun and practical use of jpt and it’s support for JSONPath. You can download an installer package from the Releases page to try it out.

ljt, a little JSON tool for your shell script

brunerd

ljt, the Little JSON Tool, is a concise and focused tool for quickly getting values from JSON and nothing else. It can be used standalone or embedded in your shell scripts. It requires only macOS 10.11+ or a *nix distro with jsc installed. It has no other dependencies.

You might have also seen my other project jpt, the JSON Power Tool. It too can be used standalone or embedded in a script however its features and size (64k) might be overkill in some case and I get it! I thought the same thing too after I looked at work of Mathew Warren, Paul Galow, and Richard Purves. Sometimes you don’t need to process JSON Text Sequences, use advanced JSONPath querying, modify JSON, or encode the output in a myriad of ways. Maybe all you need is something to retrieve a JSON value in your shell script.

Where jpt was an exercise in maximalism, ljt is one of essential minimalism – or at least as minimal as this CliftonStrengths Maximizer can go! 🤓 The minified version is mere 1.2k and offers a bit more security and functionality than a one-liner.

ljt features:
• Query using JSON Pointer or JSONPath (canonical only, no filters, unions, etc)
• Javascript code injection prevention for both JSON and the query
• Multiple input methods: file redirection, file path, here doc, here string and Unix pipe
• Output of JSON strings as regular text and JSON for all others
• Maximum input size of 2GB and max output of 720MB (Note: functions that take JSON data as an environment variable or an argument are limited to a maximum of 1MB of data)
• Zero and non-zero exit statuses for success and failure, respectively

Swing by the ljt Github page and check it out. There are two versions of the tool one is fully commented for studying and hacking (ljt), the other is a “minified” version without any comments meant for embedding into your shell scripts (ljt.min). The Releases page has a macOS pkg package to install and run ljt as a standalone utility.

Thanks for reading and happy scripting!

jpt: see JSON differently

brunerd

JSON is wonderfully efficient at encoding logical structure and hierarchy into a textual form, but sometimes our eyes and brains need some help making sense of that. Let’s see how jpt can help!

The Shape of JSON

JSON uses a small and simple palette of brackets and curly braces, to express nest-able structures like objects and arrays. However once inside those structures it’s hard to visualize the lineage of the members.

Using jpt however, one can get a better idea of what the shape of a JSON document is.

For example object-person.json:

{
  "person": {
    "name": "Lindsay Bassett",
    "nicknames": [
      "Lindy",
      "Linds"
    ],
    "heightInInches": 66,
    "head": {
      "hair": {
        "color": "light blond",
        "length": "short",
        "style": "A-line"
      },
      "eyes": "green"
    },
    "friendly":true
  }
}

Using jpt -L we can output what I am currently calling “JSONPath Object Literals”. With JPOL the entire path is spelled out for each item as well as it’s value expressed as a JSON object. You can also roundtrip JPOL right back into jpt and you’ll get the JSON again.

% jpt -L object-person.json
$={}
$["person"]={}
$["person"]["name"]="Lindsay Bassett"
$["person"]["nicknames"]=[]
$["person"]["nicknames"][0]="Lindy"
$["person"]["nicknames"][1]="Linds"
$["person"]["heightInInches"]=66
$["person"]["head"]={}
$["person"]["head"]["hair"]={}
$["person"]["head"]["hair"]["color"]="light blond"
$["person"]["head"]["hair"]["length"]="short"
$["person"]["head"]["hair"]["style"]="A-line"
$["person"]["head"]["eyes"]="green"
$["person"]["friendly"]=true

#roundtrip back into jpt (-i0 means zero indents/single line)
jpt -L object-person.json | jpt -i0
{"person":{"name":"Lindsay Bassett","nicknames":["Lindy","Linds"],"heightInInches":66,"head":{"hair":{"color":"light blond","length":"short","style":"A-line"},"eyes":"green"},"friendly":true}}

If you were to fire up jsc or some other JavaScript interpreter, declare $ as a variable using var $ and then copy and paste the output above and you will have this exact object.

Perhaps though you prefer single quotes? Add -q to use single quotes for the property names but values remain double quoted.

#-q will single quote JSONPath only, strings remain double quoted 

% jpt -qL object-person.json         
$={}
$['person']={}
$['person']['name']="Lindsay Bassett"
$['person']['nicknames']=[]
$['person']['nicknames'][0]="Lindy"
$['person']['nicknames'][1]="Linds"
$['person']['heightInInches']=66
$['person']['head']={}
$['person']['head']['hair']={}
$['person']['head']['hair']['color']="light blond"
$['person']['head']['hair']['length']="short"
$['person']['head']['hair']['style']="A-line"
$['person']['head']['eyes']="green"
$['person']['friendly']=true

#-Q will single quote both
% jpt -QL object-person.json
$={}
$['person']={}
$['person']['name']='Lindsay Bassett'
$['person']['nicknames']=[]
$['person']['nicknames'][0]='Lindy'
$['person']['nicknames'][1]='Linds'
$['person']['height in inches']=66
$['person']['head']={}
$['person']['head']['hair']={}
$['person']['head']['hair']['color']='light blond'
$['person']['head']['hair']['length']='short'
$['person']['head']['hair']['style']='A-line'
$['person']['head']['eyes']='green'
$['person']['friendly']=true

If you don’t like bracket notation use -d for dot notation (when the name permits). -Q will single quote both values and key names if using brackets. To save a few lines you can use -P to only print primitives (string, number, booleans, null) and will omit those empty object and array declarations. This too can roundtrip back into jpt, it will infer the structure type (object or array) based on the key type (string or number when in brackets).

% jpt -dQLP object-person.json       
$.person.name='Lindsay Bassett'
$.person.nicknames[0]='Lindy'
$.person.nicknames[1]='Linds'
$.person.heightInInches=66
$.person.head.hair.color='light blond'
$.person.head.hair.length='short'
$.person.head.hair.style='A-line'
$.person.head.eyes='green'
$.person.friendly=true

#roundtrip into jpt, structure types can be inferred
% jpt -dQLP object-person.json | jpt -i0    
{"person":{"name":"Lindsay Bassett","nicknames":["Lindy","Linds"],"heightInInches":66,"head":{"hair":{"color":"light blond","length":"short","style":"A-line"},"eyes":"green"},"friendly":true}}

Now perhaps we don’t care so much about the data but about the structure? Then we can use the -J (JSONPath) or -R (JSON Pointer) output combined with -K or -k for the key names only

#-K key names are double quoted
% jpt -JK /Users/brunerd/Documents/TestFiles/object-person.json
$
  "person"
    "name"
    "nicknames"
      0
      1
    "height in inches"
    "head"
      "hair"
        "color"
        "length"
        "style"
      "eyes"
    "friendly"

#-q/-Q can change the quoting to singles of course
#-C will show the constructor type of every element
% jpt -JKqC /Users/brunerd/Documents/TestFiles/object-person.json
$: Object
  'person': Object
    'name': String
    'nicknames': Array
      0: String
      1: String
    'height in inches': Number
    'head': Object
      'hair': Object
        'color': String
        'length': String
        'style': String
      'eyes': String
    'friendly': Boolean


#-k for unquotes key names, -C for constructor, -i1 for 1 space indents 

% jpt -JkC -i1 /Users/brunerd/Documents/TestFiles/object-person.json
$: Object
 person: Object
  name: String
  nicknames: Array
   0: String
   1: String
  height in inches: Number
  head: Object
   hair: Object
    color: String
    length: String
    style: String
   eyes: String
  friendly: Boolean

It’s been a lot of fun creating jpt and discovery new ways to express JSON using an emerging notation like JSONPath (which is going through the RFC process now). If you’d like to see JSON a different way download jpt and give it a try!

jpt: jamf examples

brunerd

jpt has some practical applications for the Jamf admin

Sanitizing Jamf Reports

Let’s say you’ve exported an Advanced Search, it’s got some interesting data you’d like to share, however there is personal data in it. Rather than re-running the report, why not blank out or remove those fields?

Here’s a sample file: advancedcomputersearch-2-raw.json

This an excerpt from one of the computer record:

{
"name": "Deathquark",
"udid": "2ca8977b-05a1-4cf0-9e06-24c4aa8115bc",
"Managed": "Managed",
"id": 2,
"Computer_Name": "Deathquark",
"Last_Inventory_Update": "2020-11-04 22:01:09",
"Total_Number_of_Cores": "8",
"Username": "Professor Frink",
"FileVault_2_Status": "Encrypted",
"JSS_Computer_ID": "2",
"Number_of_Available_Updates": "1",
"Model_Identifier": "MacBookPro16,1",
"Operating_System": "Mac OS X 10.15.7",
"Model": "MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)",
"MAC_Address": "12:34:56:78:9A:BC",
"Serial_Number": "C02K2ND8CMF1",
"Email_Address": "frink@hoyvin-glavin.com",
"IP_Address": "10.0.1.42",
"FileVault_Status": "1/1",
"Processor_Type": "Intel Core i9",
"Processor_Speed_MHz": "2457",
"Total_RAM_MB": "65536"
}

Now let’s say the privacy standards for this place is GDPR on steroids and all personally identifiable information must be removed, including serials, IPs, UUIDs, almost everything (but you don’t want to run the report again because it took ages to get the output)!

Here’s what that command would look like: jpt -o replace -v '"REDACTED"' -p '$["advanced_computer_search"]["computers"][*]["name","udid","Username","Computer_Name","MAC_Address","Serial_Number","Email_Address","IP_Address"]' ./advancedcomputersearch-2-raw.json

Here’s what that same computer looks like in the resulting output (as well as all others in the document):

  {
    "name": "REDACTED",
    "udid": "REDACTED",
    "Managed": "Managed",
    "id": 2,
    "Computer_Name": "REDACTED",
    "Architecture_Type": "i386",
    "Make": "Apple",
    "Service_Pack": "",
    "Last_Inventory_Update": "2020-11-04 22:01:09",
    "Active_Directory_Status": "Not Bound",
    "Total_Number_of_Cores": "8",
    "Username": "REDACTED",
    "FileVault_2_Status": "Encrypted",
    "JSS_Computer_ID": "254",
    "Number_of_Available_Updates": "1",
    "Model_Identifier": "MacBookPro16,1",
    "Operating_System": "Mac OS X 10.15.7",
    "Model": "MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)",
    "MAC_Address": "REDACTED",
    "Serial_Number": "REDACTED",
    "Email_Address": "REDACTED",
    "IP_Address": "REDACTED",
    "FileVault_Status": "1/1",
    "Processor_Type": "Intel Core i9",
    "Processor_Speed_MHz": "2457",
    "Total_RAM_MB": "65536"
  }

What we did was use the -o replace operation with a -v <value> of the JSON string "REDACTED" to all the paths matched by the JSONPath union expression (the comma separated property names in brackets) of the -p option. JSON Pointer can only act on one value at a time, this is where JSONPath can save you time and really shines.

jpt is fast because WebKit’s JavascriptCore engine is fast, for instance there is a larger version of that search that has 15,999 computers, it took only 11 seconds to redact every record.

jpt -l $.advanced_computer_search.computers ./advancedcomputersearch.json
15999

time jpt -o replace -v '"REDACTED"' -p '$.advanced_computer_search.computers[*]["name","udid","Username","Computer_Name","MAC_Address","Serial_Number","Email_Address","IP_Address"]' ./advancedcomputersearch.json > /dev/null 

11.14s user 0.35s system 104% cpu 11.030 total

Put Smart Computer Groups on a diet

When you download Smart Groups via the API, you will also get an array of all the computers objects that match at that moment in time. If you just want to back up the logic or upload to another system, you don’t want all those computers in there.

Sample file: smartgroup-1-raw.json

{
  "computer_group": {
    "id": 12,
    "name": "All 10.15.x Macs",
    "is_smart": true,
    "site": {
      "id": -1,
      "name": "None"
    },
    "criteria": [
      {
        "name": "Operating System Version",
        "priority": 0,
        "and_or": "and",
        "search_type": "like",
        "value": "10.15",
        "opening_paren": false,
        "closing_paren": false
      }
    ],
    "computers": [
      {
        "id": 1,
        "name": "mac1",
        "mac_address": "12:34:56:78:9A:BC",
        "alt_mac_address": "12:34:56:78:9A:BD",
        "serial_number": "Z18D132XJTQD"
      },
      {
        "id": 2,
        "name": "mac2",
        "mac_address": "12:34:56:78:9A:BE",
        "alt_mac_address": "12:34:56:78:9A:BF",
        "serial_number": "Z39VM86X01MZ"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Lets’ remove those computers with jpt and the JSON Patch remove operartion:
jpt -o remove -p '$.computer_group.computers' ./smartgroup-1-raw.json

Since the target is a single property name, JSON Pointer can also be used:
jpt -o remove -p /computer_group/computers ./smartgroup-1-raw.json

{
  "computer_group": {
    "id": 12,
    "name": "All 10.15.x Macs",
    "is_smart": true,
    "site": {
      "id": -1,
      "name": "None"
    },
    "criteria": [
      {
        "name": "Operating System Version",
        "priority": 0,
        "and_or": "and",
        "search_type": "like",
        "value": "10.15",
        "opening_paren": false,
        "closing_paren": false
      }
    ]
  }
}

Further Uses

Using only JSON Patch replace and remove operations this JSON could have its id removed to prep it for an API POST on another JSS to create a new group or the name and value could be modified in a looping script to create multiple JSON files for every macOS version. The jpt is flexible enough to handle most anything you throw at it, whether you are using the standalone version or have embedded it in your scripts.

Stop by the jpt GitHub page to get your copy

secret origins: the jpt

brunerd

On building a JSON tool for macOS without using Python, perl, or Ruby.

In my work as a Macintosh engineer and administrator I’ve noticed macOS has lacked a bundled tool for working with JSON at the command line. Where XML has its xpath, if your shell script needs some JSON chops, it’ll require an external binary like jq or something else scripted in Python, Ruby or perl using their JSON modules. The problem is, those runtimes have been slated for removal from a future macOS. So I took that as challenge to devise a method to query and modify JSON data within shell scripts, that didn’t use one of those deprecated scripting runtimes and didn’t require an external binary dependency either. Could I achieve robust and native JSON parsing on a Mac by simply “living off the land”?

Why not just re-install the runtimes when Apple deprecates them?

“Why limit yourself like this? Just re-install the runtimes and move on”, you may ask. Well, I’d like to think that limitations can inspire creativity but we should also consider there may be some other reasons why Apple is discontinuing the inclusion of those runtimes. Some may say, “Apple Silicon + macOS 11.0 is the perfect time for them to clean house”, to which I’d have to agree that’s a very good reason and likely a factor. Others could say they are looking to tighten the screws to keep out unsigned code: maybe, they do like to glue things shut! But really, I think it’s more akin to the web-plugins of yore like Java and Flash. Apple does not want to be the conduit for deploying 3rd party party runtimes which increase the attack surface of macOS. This seems like the most reasonable of the explanations. So, if you accept that Apple is attempting to reduce attack surface, why increase it by re-installing Python, Ruby, or perl, just so a transient script (like a Jamf Extension Attribute) can parse a JSON file? My answer to that, is you don’t. You play the hand you’re dealt. Game on!

Looking for truffles (in a very small back yard)

Despite having another project (shui) that can output and invoke Applescript from within a shell scripts for generating user interfaces, I definitely knew that Applescript was not the way to go. Apple however, added to the languages Open Scripting Architecture (OSA) supports back in 2014 with OS X Yosemite (10.10), they added Javascript along with a bridge to the Cocoa Objective-C classes and they called it JXA: Javascript for Automation. This seemed like a promising place, so I started playing with osascript and figured out how to load files and read /dev/stdin using JXA, and while looking for an answer for garbled input from stdin I came upon a Japanese blog that mentioned jsc the JavaScriptCore binary which resides in the /System/Library/Frameworks/ JavaScriptCore.framework. Arigato! Pay dirt! 🤑 jsc does exactly what we need it to do: It can interpret Javascript passed as an argument, can access the filesystem and read from /dev/stdin, and best of all is in non-Private System level Framework that exists all the way back to OS X 10.4! Just the kind of foundation on which to build the tool.

Homesteading jsc

The existence of jsc goes back all the way to OS X Tiger and it’s functionality has evolved over the years. In order to have a consistent experience in jpt from macOS 10.4 – 11.x+ a few polyfills had to be employed for missing functions, along with a few other workarounds regarding file loading, printing and exit codes (or lack thereof). Once those were addressed the jsc proved to be a highly optimized Javascript environment that’s blazingly fast. It spans 13 macOS releases and is even present in many Linux distros out-of-the-box (Ubuntu and CentOS) and can even be run on Windows when the Linux Subsytem is installed.

With the host environment sorted, I began working with the original JSONPath code by Stefan Goessner as the query language. I didn’t know about JSON Pointer yet so this strange beast was all I knew! It worked out really. I went full throttle into developing the “swiss army knife” of JSON tools. I really leaned into the Second System Effect, as described in the Mythical Man-month, it’s when you put every doodad, gizmo and doo-hicky in your 2nd product (my first simple JSON pretty-printer built in JS on jsc). Eventually though, after I reached a feature plateau, I came back around to the address the quirks of the original JSONPath code. I ended up rewriting signifigant chunks of JSONPath and released it as it’s own project: brunerd JSONPath. But I digress, let’s get back to the JSON Power Tool.

jpt: powers and abilities

At it’s most basic, jpt will format or “pretty print” any JSON given. jpt can also handle data retrieval from JSON document using either JSONPath or JSON Pointer syntax. JSONPath, while not a standard, is a highly expressive query language akin to XPath for XML, with poweful features like recursive search, filter expressions, slices, and unions. JSON Pointer on the other hand is narrower in focus, succint and easily expressed, and standardized but it does not offer any of the interogative features that I feel make JSONPath so intriguing. Finally, jpt can also modify values in a JSON document using standardized JSON Patch operations like: add, remove, replace, copy, move, and test, as well as the also standardized JSON Merge Patch operation. Altogether, the jpt can format, retrieve and alter JSON documents using only a bit of outer shell script plus a lot more Javascript on any macOS since 10.4! 😅

Where can I get the jpt?

Stop by the project’s GitHub page at: https://github.com/brunerd/jpt

There you will find the full source and also a minified version of the jpt for inclusion within your shell scripts. Since it’s never compiled you can always peer inside and learn from it, customize it, modify it, or just tinker around with it (usually the best teacher).

Future Plans

There will undoubtedly be continued work on the jpt. Surely there are less than optimal routines, un-idiomatic idioms, edge cases not found, and features yet to be realized. But as far as the core functionality goes though, it’s fairly feature complete in my opinion. Considering that one of my top 10 StrengthsFinder qualities is “Maximizer”, the odds are pretty good, I’ll keep honing the jpt‘s utility, size (smaller), and sharing more articles with examples on the kinds of queries and data alteration operations the jpt can so perform. Stay tuned!