KO | EN

GitLite

Minimalist Open Source Repository Search Engine

gitlite — search

#dsh #dsh-plugin #ai-agent #developer-tools #codex #typescript #cli #deepseek-harness #claude-code #ai-agents #mcp #rust

JSON-path

★ 97 Open GitHub ↗

Find the path of a key / value in a JSON hierarchy easily.

// repository documentation

Was this content helpful?

★ 0 (0 ratings)

JSON Path
=========

Find the path of a key / value in a JSON hierarchy *easily*.

Motivation
----------

When working with big and nested JSON files, sometimes
it's very difficult to figure out the path of a key. You
open the JSON file in a text editor, find the key / value
pair you need, but then it can be a pain to get the full path of the key.

Example
-------

Consider the following JSON file:

```json
{
    "a": 1,
    "b": {
        "c": 2,
        "friends": [
            {
                "best": "Alice"
            },
            {
                "second": "Bob"
            },
            [5, 6, 7],
            [
                {"one": 1},
                {"two": 2}
            ]
        ]
    }
}
```

JSON Path will traverse it recursively and print every
path / value pair:

```bash
$ ./jsonpath.py samples/short.json
root['a'] => 1
root['b']['c'] => 2
root['b']['friends'][0]['best'] => 'Alice'
root['b']['friends'][1]['second'] => 'Bob'
root['b']['friends'][2][0] => 5
root['b']['friends'][2][1] => 6
root['b']['friends'][2][2] => 7
root['b']['friends'][3][0]['one'] => 1
root['b']['friends'][3][1]['two'] => 2
```

The idea is to combine its usage with the Unix command
`grep`. For instance, what's the path of the key that
leads to Bob?

```bash
$ ./jsonpath.py samples/short.json | grep -i bob
root['b']['friends'][1]['second'] => 'Bob'
```

Then simply paste it in your application:

```python
>>> d
{'a': 1, 'b': {'c': 2, 'friends': [{'best': 'Alice'}, {'second': 'Bob'}, [5, 6, 7], [{'one': 1}, {'two': 2}]]}}
>>> d['b']['friends'][1]['second']
'Bob'
>>>
```

Requirements
------------

The project has no external dependencies. It only relies on the standard library.

Related Works
-------------

* [go-jsonpath](https://github.com/jabbalaci/go-jsonpath): a Go implementation of this project
* See Chris Nielsen's excellent [JSON Visualization](http://chris.photobooks.com/json/default.htm)
webapp. Somewhat hidden feature, but if you click on an item in the table,
you'll get its path on the left side. I wanted something similar in the command line. Once I
was working with sensitive data, and I didn't want to paste them in a third-party webapp.
* It seems Chris Nielsen's webapp is gone. However, someone saved it and it can be
found here: https://github.com/2x2xplz/json_visualizer . Online version: https://altearius.github.io/tools/json/index.html .
* JSON Crack ([webpage](https://jsoncrack.com/), [GitHub link](https://github.com/AykutSarac/jsoncrack.com)).
JSON Crack is a tool that generates graph diagrams from JSON objects.
It has an [online interface](https://jsoncrack.com/editor), but you can also install it
as a VS Code extension.

JSON-path

Explore Similar Repositories

Was this content helpful?

Recent Feedback

Download README