query-pipe: command-line (ND)JSON querying

A tool for filtering and transforming JSON from the command-line. Automatically interprets Newline Delimited JSON (NDJSON) from stdin, including pretty-printed NDJSON, and can optionally query top-level array input.

• a familiar and approachable SQL-like query language
• ~600kb binary, with zero runtime dependencies (compiled with QuickJS)

Install

$ curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paybase/qp/master/install.sh | sh

Usage

$ qp [...flags] [<query>]

Without any arguments qp is a straight stdin to stdout pipe for valid JSON.

• -p, --pretty - output pretty JSON
• -a, --no-array - disable processing of top-level arrays
• -b, --buffer - disable forced flushing of stdout for every JSON
• -s, --strict - exit on JSON parse error with exit code 1

• -x - silence JSON parse errors (stderr)

• -h, --help - display help message

• -v, --version - print version
• --syntax - display the syntax guide

Syntax

The query language is heavily inspired by SQL, offering a familiar and approachable syntax. Behind the scenes it uses a recursive descent parser to adhere to logical operator precedence.

[ select [ * | field_ident | call_expr | (*)_lit | as_expression ] ]
  where [ bin_expr | logical_expr ] [ and | or ] [ ... ]
  [ limit num_lit ]
  [ offset num_lit ]

In the examples below, it is assumed that qp is receiving a stream of input structured in the following way:

{
  "id": <id>,
  "name": { "first": "<name>" },
  "age": <age>,
  "dob": "<date>",
  "data": [ "random", ... ]
}

Transforming

By default qp assumes select *, acting as an identity function over the JSON input. Using a select clause you are able to transform the output of your filter.

• select id where id >= 3 - [{"id":3}, {"id":4}, ...]
• select id as * where id >= 3 - [3, 4, ...]
• select age, name.first as firstName where age > 42 - [{"age":43, "firstName":"<name>"}, ...]
• select data.0 as * - ["random" ...]
• select age as number - [{"number":<age>}, ...]
• select date(dob) as birthYear - [{"birthYear":"0000-00-00T00:00:00.000Z"}, ...]
• select 1 - [1, 1, ...]
• select true - [true, true, ...]
• select null - [null, null, ...]
• select (1,2,3) - [[1,2,3], ...]
• select date() - ["2020-01-11T00:00:00.000Z", ...]
• select 1 as one - [{"one":1}, {"one":1}, ...]

Filtering

By default qp assumes where 1 = 1, producing JSON output for every JSON input it receives. Logical operator precedence is adhered to so the following are not equivalent:

• where (age > 30 and age <= 40) or name.first = "Orion"
• where age > 30 and (age <= 40 or name.first = "Orion")

Equality & Order Comparison Operators:

Either side of an equality operator can be a field identifier, literal or call expression.

• =, is - strict JS equality (equivalent to ===)
• !=, <>, is not - strict JS inequality (equivalent to !==)
• %= - non-strict JS equality (equivalent to ==)
• %!= - non-strict JS inequality (equivialent to !=)
• >, >=, <=, < - ordering comparison JS

Other Operators:

• like, not like - case-sensitive JS regex
• ilike, not ilike - case-insensitive JS regex
• in, not in - lookup in JS array

For example:

• select name where name.first like _am% - [{"name":{"first":"Sam"}}, {"name":{"first":"Cameron"}}, ...]
• select id as * where id like 1 - [1, 10, 11, 12 ...]
• select name.first as n where name.first ilike "^[aeiou]" - [{"n":"Abed"}, {"n":"Izzy"}, ...]
• select * where id in (1,2,3) - [{"id":1, ...rest}, {"id":2, ...rest}, {"id":3, ...rest}, ...]
• select id as * where "tails" in data - [0, 5, ...]

Call Expressions

qp provides a couple of utility functions that can be used in your query.

The date() function is synonymous with the javascript Date() constructor.

select date() as now
where date(dob) >= date("1984-01-01")

For more complex object construction you can use from_entries((k, v)...). It takes a variadic number of tuples of (key, value) and can be used recursively.

select from_entries(
  ("now", date()),
  ("nested", from_entries((name.first, age))),
  ("copy", *)
)

Which would output:

{
  "now":"2020-01-11T00:00:00.000Z",
  "nested": { "Sam": 40 },
  "copy": { ...copy of input }
}

There is potential for new call expressions to be added to qp, or, with a slightly larger binary size, facilitate custom call expressions at runtime.

Building

qp is built with QuickJS.

To install QuickJS and the @paybase/csp dependency, run:

$ sh build/vendor.sh

You can provide QJS_VERSION and CSP_VERSION environment variables to the command above. By default the script will install QuickJS@2019-12-21 and @paybase/csp@1.0.8.

It may take a while to compile QuickJS, however when that process is complete, you can build qp by running:

$ sh build/compile.sh

Run the tests with:

$ sh test/test.sh