What is jsonata?
jsonata is a lightweight query and transformation language for JSON data. It allows you to query, transform, and manipulate JSON data with a simple and expressive syntax.
What are jsonata's main functionalities?
Querying JSON Data
This feature allows you to query JSON data using a simple and expressive syntax. In this example, we query for a person named 'John' in the 'people' array.
const jsonata = require('jsonata');
const data = { "people": [{ "name": "John", "age": 30 }, { "name": "Jane", "age": 25 }] };
const expression = jsonata('people[name="John"]');
const result = expression.evaluate(data);
console.log(result); // Output: { "name": "John", "age": 30 }
Transforming JSON Data
This feature allows you to transform JSON data into a new structure. In this example, we transform the 'people' array to have 'fullName' and 'yearsOld' properties instead of 'name' and 'age'.
const jsonata = require('jsonata');
const data = { "people": [{ "name": "John", "age": 30 }, { "name": "Jane", "age": 25 }] };
const expression = jsonata('people.{"fullName": name, "yearsOld": age}');
const result = expression.evaluate(data);
console.log(result); // Output: [{ "fullName": "John", "yearsOld": 30 }, { "fullName": "Jane", "yearsOld": 25 }]
Aggregating JSON Data
This feature allows you to perform aggregations on JSON data. In this example, we calculate the sum of ages in the 'people' array.
const jsonata = require('jsonata');
const data = { "people": [{ "name": "John", "age": 30 }, { "name": "Jane", "age": 25 }] };
const expression = jsonata('people.age.sum()');
const result = expression.evaluate(data);
console.log(result); // Output: 55
Other packages similar to jsonata
jq
jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor. It allows you to slice, filter, map, and transform structured data with the same ease that sed, awk, grep, and friends let you play with text. Compared to jsonata, jq is more suited for command-line usage and scripting.
lodash
lodash is a modern JavaScript utility library delivering modularity, performance, and extras. It provides a wide range of utility functions for common programming tasks, including manipulating and querying JSON data. While lodash is more general-purpose, jsonata is specifically designed for querying and transforming JSON.
underscore
underscore is a JavaScript library that provides a whole mess of useful functional programming helpers without extending any built-in objects. It includes functions for working with arrays, objects, and other data structures, making it useful for manipulating JSON data. However, jsonata offers a more specialized and expressive syntax for JSON querying and transformation.
JSONata
JSON query and transformation language
Reference implementation of the JSONata query and transformation language.
Installation
Quick start
In Node.js:
const jsonata = require('jsonata');
const data = {
example: [
{value: 4},
{value: 7},
{value: 13}
]
};
(async () => {
const expression = jsonata('$sum(example.value)');
const result = await expression.evaluate(data);
})()
In a browser:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>JSONata test</title>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/jsonata/jsonata.min.js"></script>
<script>
async function greeting() {
var json = JSON.parse(document.getElementById('json').value);
var result = await jsonata('"Hello, " & name').evaluate(json);
document.getElementById('greeting').innerHTML = result;
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<textarea id="json">{ "name": "Wilbur" }</textarea>
<button onclick="greeting()">Click me</button>
<p id="greeting"></p>
</body>
</html>
More information
Contributing
See the CONTRIBUTING.md for details of how to contribute to this repo.