jq 1.5
Thanks to the 20+ developers who have sent us PRs since 1.4, and the many contributors to issues and the wiki.
The manual for jq 1.5 can be found at https://stedolan.github.io/jq/manual/v1.5/
Salient new features since 1.4:
-
regexp support (using Oniguruma)!
-
a proper module system
import "foo/bar" as bar; # import foo/bar.jq's defs into a bar::* namespace
and
include "foo/bar"; # import foo/bar.jq's defs into the top-level
-
destructuring syntax (
. as [$first, $second, {$foo, $bar}] | ...
) -
math functions
-
an online streaming parser
-
minimal I/O builtions (
inputs
,debug
)One can now write:
jq -n 'reduce inputs as $i ( ... )'
to reduce inputs in an online way without having to slurp them first! This works with streaming too.
-
try/catch, for catching and handling errors (this makes for a dynamic non-local exit system)
-
a lexical non-local exit system
One can now say
label $foo | ..... | break $foo
where the break causes control to return to the label $foo, which
then producesempty
(backtracks). There's named and anonymous
labels. -
tail call optimization (TCO), which allows efficient recursion in jq
-
a variety of new control structure builtins (e.g.,
while(cond; exp)
,repeat(exp)
,until(cond; next)
), many of which internally use TCO -
an enhanced form of
reduce
:foreach exp as $name (init_exp; update_exp; extract_exp)
-
the ability to read module data files
import "foo/bar" as $bar; # read foo/bar.json, bind to $bar::bar
-
--argjson var '<JSON text>'
Using --arg var bit me too many times :)
-
--slurpfile var "filename"
Replaces the
--argfile
form (which is now deprecated but remains for backward compatibility). -
support for application/json-seq (RFC7464)
-
a large variety of new utility functions, many being community contributions (e.g.,
bsearch
, for binary searching arrays) -
datetime functions
-
a variety of performance enhancements
-
def($a): ...;
is now allowed as an equivalent ofdef(a): a as $a | ...;
-
test and build improvements, including gcov support
Lastly, don't forget the wiki! The wiki has a lot of new content since 1.4, much of it contributed by the community.