Postgres - return row data as JSON array or arrays

Question

On PG v9.4 and higher, I would like to export some data (based on SELECT statement) as JSON array of arrays.

The standard json_agg returns what I want but it returns array of objects (where object keys are column names) For example this query:

SELECT json_agg(data_rows)
FROM (
        -- in memory table sample
    SELECT * FROM 
    (VALUES
        ('John',now(),1940,'Winston','Lennon'),
        ('Paul',now(),1942,'','McCartney'),
        ('George',now(),1943,NULL,'Harrison'),
        ('Ringo',now(),1940,'my passions are ring,drum and shades','Starr')
    ) AS x("FirstName", "CurrentDt", "BirthYear", "MiddleName", "LastName")
        ORDER BY "BirthYear" DESC, "FirstName" DESC
) AS data_rows

returns following:

[
 {"FirstName":"George","CurrentDt":"2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00","BirthYear":1943,"MiddleName":null,"LastName":"Harrison"}, 
 {"FirstName":"Paul","CurrentDt":"2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00","BirthYear":1942,"MiddleName":"","LastName":"McCartney"}, 
 {"FirstName":"Ringo","CurrentDt":"2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00","BirthYear":1940,"MiddleName":"my passions are ring,drum and shades","LastName":"Starr"}, 
 {"FirstName":"John","CurrentDt":"2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00","BirthYear":1940,"MiddleName":"Winston","LastName":"Lennon"}
]

but what I want is:

[
 ["George","2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00",1943,null,"Harrison"}, 
 ["Paul","2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00",1942,"","McCartney"}, 
 ["Ringo","2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00",1940,"my passions are ring,drum and shades","Starr"}, 
 ["John","2016-09-12T13:13:07.862485-04:00",1940,"Winston","Lennon"}
]

I have attempted to use the trick mentioned here to convert rows to hstore first, but the problem with this is that column ordering is not preserved.... So this query:

SELECT json_agg(avals(hstore(data_rows)))
FROM (
        -- in memory table sample
    SELECT * FROM 
    (VALUES
        ('John',  now(),1940,'Winston','Lennon'),
        ('Paul',  now(),1942,'','McCartney'),
        ('George',now(),1943,NULL,'Harrison'),
        ('Ringo', now(),1940,'my passions are ring,drum and shades','Starr')
    ) AS x("FirstName", "CurrentDt", "BirthYear", "MiddleName", "LastName")
        ORDER BY "BirthYear" DESC, "FirstName" DESC
) AS data_rows
-- placing order by 'outside' did not make any difference
--ORDER BY "BirthYear" DESC, "FirstName" DESC

returns following (which has wrong column ordering)

[
 ["Harrison","1943","2016-09-12 14:07:06.772227-04","George",null], 
 ["McCartney","1942","2016-09-12 14:07:06.772227-04","Paul",""], 
 ["Starr","1940","2016-09-12 14:07:06.772227-04","Ringo","my passions are ring,drum and shades"], 
 ["Lennon","1940","2016-09-12 14:07:06.772227-04","John","Winston"]
]

Does anyone know how to get result as JSON array of arrays?

redneb · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-12T18:51:14.083

You probably want something like that:

SELECT json_agg(info)
FROM (
    SELECT json_build_array("LastName","BirthYear","CurrentDt","FirstName","MiddleName") AS info
    FROM 
        (VALUES
            ('John',now(),1940,'Winston','Lennon'),
            ('Paul',now(),1942,'','McCartney'),
            ('George',now(),1943,NULL,'Harrison'),
            ('Ringo',now(),1940,'my passions are ring,drum and shades','Starr')
        ) AS x("FirstName", "CurrentDt", "BirthYear", "MiddleName", "LastName")
    ORDER BY "BirthYear" DESC, "FirstName" DESC
) as t;

I used json_build_array to put all the values for each person in an json array and then in the outside query, I used json_agg to collect all those arrays into a single array of arrays.

You can also move the ORDER BY clause inside the aggragate function to obtain the following:

SELECT json_agg(json_build_array("LastName","BirthYear","CurrentDt","FirstName","MiddleName") ORDER BY "BirthYear" DESC, "FirstName" DESC)
    FROM 
        (VALUES
            ('John',now(),1940,'Winston','Lennon'),
            ('Paul',now(),1942,'','McCartney'),
            ('George',now(),1943,NULL,'Harrison'),
            ('Ringo',now(),1940,'my passions are ring,drum and shades','Starr')
        ) AS x("FirstName", "CurrentDt", "BirthYear", "MiddleName", "LastName");

Nice! It does not seem possible to specify json_buiild_array(*) which is a minor nuisance (having to repeat all column aliases in my real, big query). But it does the job ! — zam6ak, Sep 12 '16 at 20:09
Nice! A little easier-to-understand example that takes data from a pre-existing table: `SELECT json_agg(json_build_array(pk, ts, comment) ORDER BY ts DESC) FROM sessions;` — mirabilos, Jan 06 '23 at 16:06

Postgres - return row data as JSON array or arrays

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