Exporting JSON to environment variables

Question

If I have a JSON like this,

{
    "hello1": "world1",
    "testk": "testv"
}

And I want to export each of these key-value pairs as environment variables, how to do it via shell script? So for example, when I write on the terminal, echo $hello1, world1 should be printed and similarly for other key-value pairs? Note: The above JSON is present in a variable called $values and not in a file.

I know it will be done via jq and written a shell script for this, but it doesn't work.

for row in $(echo "${values}" | jq -r '.[]'); do
    -jq() {
        echo ${row} | jq -r ${1}
    }
    echo $(_jq '.samplekey')
done

Answer 1

Borrowing from this answer which does all of the hard work of turning the JSON into key=value pairs, you could get these into the environment by looping over the jq output and exporting them:

for s in $(echo $values | jq -r "to_entries|map(\"\(.key)=\(.value|tostring)\")|.[]" ); do
    export $s
done

If the variables being loaded contain embedded whitespace, this is also reasonable, if slightly more complex:

while read -rd $'' line
do
    export "$line"
done < <(jq -r <<<"$values" \
         'to_entries|map("\(.key)=\(.value)\u0000")[]')

Answer 2

Using command substitution $() :

# $(jq -r 'keys[] as $k | "export \($k)=\(.[$k])"' file.json)
# echo $testk
testv

Edit : Responding to this comment

You should do

$( echo "$values" | jq -r 'keys[] as $k | "export \($k)=\(.[$k])"' )

Just mind the double quotes around $values

^{Note: Couldn't confirm if there is security implication to this approach, that is if the user could manipulate the json to wreak havoc.}

Answer 3

Another way, without using jq, is to parse the json with grep & sed:

for keyval in $(grep -E '": [^\{]' my.json | sed -e 's/: /=/' -e "s/\(\,\)$//"); do
    echo "export $keyval"
    eval export $keyval
done

Explanation:

• First, grep will filter all "key" : value pairs (value can be "string", number, or boolean).
• Then, sed will replace : with =, and remove trailing ,.
• Lastly, exporting the "key"=value with eval

Here's an output example, exporting json keys, from an AWS record-set:

export "Name"="\052.apps.nmanos-cluster-a.devcluster.openshift.com."

export "Type"="A"

export "HostedZoneId"="Z67SXBLZRQ7X7T"

export "DNSName"="a24070461d50270e-1391692.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com."

export "EvaluateTargetHealth"=false

Answer 4

None of the existing answers preserve whitespace in the values in a POSIX shell. The following line will use jq to take each key:value of some JSON and export them as environment variables, properly escaping whitespace and special characters.

2023-01-28: BUGFIX UPDATE:

My previous answer did not work for all possible values and could cause errors. Please instead use the following line, which uses jq's @sh format string to properly escape values for the shell. You must also enclose everything after eval in quotes to preserve newlines. I've updated the sample JSON file to include more characters to test with.

This answer now appears to be the only one that handles all cases. There are no loops and it's one line to export all values. The downside is that it uses eval, which is theoretically dangerous... but because the entire key=value is now being escaped for the shell, this should be safe to use.

New answer (use this one):

eval "export $(echo "$values" | jq -r 'to_entries | map("\(.key)=\(.value)") | @sh')"

Old answer (don't use this one):

eval export $(echo "$values" \
  | jq -r 'to_entries|map("\"\(.key)=\(.value|tostring)\"")|.[]' )

edit thanks @Delthas for pointing out a missing 'export'

Sample JSON file:

bash-5.2$ cat <<'EOJSON' > foo.json
{
 "foo_1": "bar 1",
 "foo_2": "This ! is ' some @ weird $text { to ( escape \" here",
 "foo_3": "this is some \nsample new line\n    text to\ntry and escape"
}
EOJSON

Sample script:

bash-5.2$ cat <<'EOSH' > foo.sh
values="`cat foo.json`"
eval "export $(echo "$values" | jq -r 'to_entries | map("\(.key)=\(.value)") | @sh')"
export
echo "foo_2: $foo_2"
echo "foo_3: $foo_3"
EOSH

Running the sample script:

bash-5.2$ env -i sh foo.sh
export PWD='/path/to/my/home'
export SHLVL='1'
export foo_1='bar 1'
export foo_2='This ! is '"'"' some @ weird $text { to ( escape " here'
export foo_3='this is some 
sample new line
    text to
try and escape'
foo_2: This ! is ' some @ weird $text { to ( escape " here
foo_3: this is some 
sample new line
    text to
try and escape

Pros:

• no need for Bash
• preserves whitespace in values
• no loops
• (update) properly escapes all values for use in the shell

Cons:

• uses eval, which is considered "unsafe". however, because jq is escaping all input, this is unlikely to cause a security issue (unless jq is found to have a bug which does not properly escape data using the @sh filter).

Answer 5

The approach illustrated by the following shell script avoids most (but not all) problems with special characters:

#!/bin/bash

function json2keyvalue {
   cat<<EOF | jq -r 'to_entries|map("\(.key)\t\(.value|tostring)")[]'
{
    "hello1": "world1",
    "testk": "testv"
}
EOF
}

while IFS=$'\t' read -r key value
do
    export "$key"="$value"
done < <(json2keyvalue)

echo hello1="$hello1"
echo testk="$testk"

Note that the above assumes that there are no tabs in the keys themselves.

Answer 6

jtc solution:

export $(<file.json jtc -w'[:]<>a:<L>k' -qqT'"{L}={}"')

Answer 7

I've come up with a solution (here in bash):

function source_json_as_environ() {
  eval "$(jq -r '
  def replace_dot:
    . | gsub("\\."; "_");
  def trim_spaces:
    . | gsub("^[ \t]+|[ \t]+$"; "");
  to_entries|map(
    "export \(.key|trim_spaces|replace_dot)="
    + "\(.value|tostring|trim_spaces|@sh)"
    )|.[]' $@)"
}

And you can use it like this:

$ source_json_as_environ values.json

Answer 8

here's a improved version based on above answers, that handles well spaces and line breaks:

export ENVS='{"BASE_URL": "JUICEFS_CONSOLE_URL/static", "CFG_URL": "JUICEFS_CONSOLE_URL/volume/mount"}'
for keyval in $(echo $ENVS | sed -e 's/": "/=/g' -e 's/{"//g' -e 's/", "/ /g' -e 's/"}//g' ); do
    echo "export $keyval"
done

export ENVS='{"BASE_URL": "JUICEFS_CONSOLE_URL/static",
    "CFG_URL": "JUICEFS_CONSOLE_URL/volume/mount"}'
for keyval in $(echo $ENVS | sed -e 's/": "/=/g' -e 's/{"//g' -e 's/", "/ /g' -e 's/"}//g' ); do
    echo "export $keyval"
done

export ENVS='{"BASE_URL": "JUICEFS_CONSOLE_URL/static",   "CFG_URL": "JUICEFS_CONSOLE_URL/volume/mount"}'
for keyval in $(echo $ENVS | sed -e 's/": "/=/g' -e 's/{"//g' -e 's/", "/ /g' -e 's/"}//g' ); do
    echo "export $keyval"
done