Converting json string in a shell variable to string literal

Question

I have a shell variable which contains json as follows

{ "test" :"test", "temp":"temp" }

This is a part of json that I got when parsed from jq, which is a json parser tool.But when I pass this to curl as a part of post request body, it is getting converted to

   '{' 
     '"test"' ':' 'test,'
      '"temp"' ':' 'temp'
   '}'

But I want it as

   '{
      "test" : "test",
      "temp" : "temp"
    }'

VAL=$(echo "$RET" | jq ".pending[$j].value")

VAL is the variable that will contain the json I need to pass this VAL as request body to curl

curl -X POST -H "$CONTENT_HEADER" -H "$AUTH_HEADER" http://localhost:8080/testApi -d $VAL

Have you seen this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7172784/how-to-post-json-data-with-curl-from-terminal-commandline-to-test-spring-rest — vvs, Oct 04 '15 at 14:50
By the way, you should be using `--arg` instead of interpolating shell variables in your jq script. — , Oct 04 '15 at 16:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 04 '15 at 19:51

2

The shell is interpreting it as several arguments. Either quote the expansion (as in -d "$VAL") or pipe it instead of saving it to a variable jq '...' | curl ...

edited Oct 04 '15 at 19:51

that other guy

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answered Oct 04 '15 at 16:00

Converting json string in a shell variable to string literal

1 Answers1