jq: How do I assign a jq output to a variable?

Dylan Steward 0
Viewed 37

I'm new to jq and struggling to obtain a json value and use it in a bash IF statement.

{
    "animal": "elephant",
    "colour": "red"
}

VAR=$( jq '.animal' animal.json )
echo "$VAR"

if [[ "$VAR" == "elephant" ]]; then
      echo "this is an elephant"
else
      echo "failed"
fi

When I run the script the comparison fails

What can change to make the script work?

jq bash if-statement json
1 Answers

jq outputs "elephant", note the "

Add -r to the jq command so the quotes are removed (raw-mode)

Then the output will match the string elephant

#!/bin/bash

VAR="$(jq -r '.animal' animal.json)"
echo "$VAR"

if [[ "$VAR" == "elephant" ]]; then
      echo "this is an elephant"
else
      echo "failed"
fi
0stone00
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