Read the json and store the key as bash variables

Question

I am trying to read the json file and store the keys as bash variable and the values as variable value. For instance here is my test.json:

{
"Day":'0',
"num":'85',
"Qtr":"[20183, 20184, 20191, 20192]",
"pSize":"75"
}

I need to store the variables like this in a bash file:

    $Day=0
    $num=85
    $Qtr=[20183, 20184, 20191, 20192]
    $psize=75

I found a way to extract the value using jq, but I am unable to store the key as variable in bash

-bash-4.2$ Qtr=`jq .Qtr test.json`
-bash-4.2$ echo $Qtr
"[20183, 20184, 20191, 20192]"

Could someone please provide a snippet as to how to loop through a json file and store the key as variables and values as values?

Thank you in advance

Thanks. Yes as you can see my post, I 've already tried that. The main issue is how do I store the key as a variable in bash? — user3605317, Mar 23 '21 at 23:11
What do you mean store? WHat exactly are you trying to do? Aren't you echo-ing a stored value? — naimdjon, Mar 23 '21 at 23:13
Well there are some errors in your JSON above. 1: You should not be using single quotes `'` and 2: That thing that looks like an array is not because it is actually a string (it has quotes around it). — Martin York, Mar 23 '21 at 23:25
Once you fix the string issue: `Qtr =( $(jq .Qtr[] test.json) )` — Martin York, Mar 23 '21 at 23:26
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I just want to parse the json and store the key as bash variables like this: $Day=0 $num=85 — user3605317, Mar 23 '21 at 23:30
@MartinYork please ignore the array, I want to extract the entire array as string into a bash variable, that's it — user3605317, Mar 23 '21 at 23:33

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 24 '21 at 00:37

Would you please try the following:

#!/bin/bash

while IFS== read key value; do
    printf -v "$key" "$value"
done < <(jq -r 'to_entries|map("\(.key)=\(.value|tostring)")|.[]' test.json)

# test of the variables
echo "Day: $day"
echo "Qtr: $Qtr"
echo "num: $num"
echo "pSize: $pSize"

The jq command jq -r 'to_entries|map("\(.key)=\(.value|tostring)")|.[]' test.json converts the json object into key=value pairs.
The output of jq is fed to the while loop via the process substitution <(command).
The -v varname option to the printf command assigns the variable indirecly expressed with varname to the output.

That's exactly what I wanted. it worked like a charm. Thanks a ton for showing this code snippet and I really appreciate the explanation as well. — user3605317, Mar 24 '21 at 05:05

Read the json and store the key as bash variables

1 Answers1