jq not parsing json with spaces

Question

I’m trying to run the following command that reads JSON from a file and formats it with jq :

jq -n -r --arg m $(<$1) '$m | fromjson | {records:[{value:.}]}'

It produces the desired output when the input JSON does not contain spaces, such as {"test":"helloworld"} :

{
  "records": [
    {
       "value": {
        "test": "helloworld"
      }
     }
  ]
}

However, for an input like {"test":"hello world"} it would give the following error:

jq: error: syntax error, unexpected QQSTRING_START, expecting $end (Unix shell quoting issues?) at <top-level>, line 1:
world"}     
jq: 1 compile error

Can’t figure out what’s causing this problem.

Thanks for any help :)

Why aren't you just reading from the file normally? `jq -r '{records: [{value:.}]}' "$1"` — chepner, Dec 12 '17 at 15:22

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 12 '17 at 14:58

2

It's not a jq problem but a quoting issue (as highlighted in the error).

Change the --arg option to have the value within double quote:

arg='{"test":"hello world"}'
jq -n -r --arg m "$arg" '$m | fromjson | {records:[{value:.}]}'

answered Dec 12 '17 at 14:58

oliv

12,690
25
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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 12 '17 at 15:00

0

You've encountered a shell issue: you are missing quotation marks around $(<$1). The hint is that the space makes a difference.

By the way, when there are several moving parts (as there are here), it would be wise to try to isolate the problem before resorting to stackoverflow. That way, you will often solve the problem yourself; if not, it will at least make it easier for others to focus on the real (and hopefully interesting) issue.

answered Dec 12 '17 at 15:00

peak

105,803
17
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thank you, I’m new to shell and I was having a hard time identifying where the issue could be coming from… this whole quotation thing confuses me. :) – tarteflambee Dec 12 '17 at 15:15

jq not parsing json with spaces

2 Answers2

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