How to update some values in a json file and save changes in the same file by jq

Question

I have the following json file :

{
  "src": "ssh://git@bitbucket.org/myrepos/project",
  "version": "master",
  "archetype_version": "master",
  "roles": [
    {
      "src": "ssh://git@bitbucket.org/myrepos/project",
      "version": "master"
    }
  ]
}

I want to change the version from master to another one, so I do the following command:

 cat file.json | jq '.roles[0].version = "new"' | jq '.version = "new"' | jq '.archetype_version = "new"' > file2.json

How to save the changes to file.json not to file2.json because I'll need to use the same file later?

peak · Answer 1 · 2018-05-17T15:38:28.640

1

You could also use sponge in "moreutils" (https://joeyh.name/code/moreutils/). See the jq FAQ for further details and options.

By the way, you can compress your pipeline so that there is just one invocation of jq and no invocation of cat:

< file.json jq '
.roles[0].version = "new"
| .version = "new"
| .archetype_version = "new"' | sponge file.json

Of course overwriting the input file without first backing it up generally carries some risk, so in many ways a two-step process such as the following is best:

mv file.json file.tmp && < file.tmp jq .... > file.json

edited May 17 '18 at 15:38

answered May 17 '18 at 14:46

peak

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Will this work from a Windows 10 OS? – Neo Jun 11 '18 at 22:54
@Neo: if you do not have access to `sponge`, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6604852/powershell-equivalent-to-sponge-in-moreutils – peak Jun 11 '18 at 23:14
So no need for JQ to parse out the JSON I need? – Neo Jun 11 '18 at 23:45

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 17 '18 at 14:31

0

one way is:

..file1.json|..|..|.. >file2.json && mv file2.json file1.json

answered May 17 '18 at 14:31

Kent

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How to update some values in a json file and save changes in the same file by jq

2 Answers2