jq: nested object, extract top-level id and lift a value from internal object

Question

Given the following xample.json;

[
 {
  \"id\": 12345678,
  \"stuff\": { \"book\": \"shelf\", \"hook\": \"line\", \"took\": \"off\", \"info-spec         


        

Answer 1

interesting, the issue is indeed the "-" character and this works for me:

jq '.[] | { id, "info-spec": .stuff."info-spec" }' xample.json
{
  "id": 12345678,
  "info-spec": 12
}
{
  "id": 12345679,
  "info-spec": 23
}

yet your jq does not seem to like that syntax as it broke on the following and mine does not:

jq '.[] | .stuff."info-spec"' xample.json
12
23

I use:

jq --version
jq-1.4

edit: looks like a version issue with <1.4 indeed: https://github.com/stedolan/jq/issues/38

Answer 2

I managed to figure it out.

$ jq '.[] | { id, "info-spec": .stuff["info-spec"] }' xample.json
{
  "info-spec": 12,
  "id": 12345678
}
{
  "info-spec": 23,
  "id": 12345679
}

The key here seems to be to use the newkey: .complex["key"] notation for lifting.