Make JSON greppable!
gron transforms JSON into discrete assignments to make it easier to grep for what you want and see the absolute 'path' to it.
It eases the exploration of APIs that return large blobs of JSON but have terrible documentation.
gron has no runtime dependencies. You can just download a binary for Linux or Mac and run it.
Put the binary in your $PATH (e.g. in /usr/bin) to make it easy to use:
▶ tar xzf gron-linux-amd64-0.1.5.tgz
▶ sudo mv gron /usr/bin/
Or if you're a Go user you can use go get:
▶ go get github.com/tomnomnom/gron
Get JSON from a file:
▶ gron testdata/two.json
json = {};
json.contact = {};
json.contact.email = "[email protected]";
json.contact.twitter = "@TomNomNom";
json.github = "https://github.com/tomnomnom/";
json.likes = [];
json.likes[0] = "code";
json.likes[1] = "cheese";
json.likes[2] = "meat";
json.name = "Tom";
From a URL:
▶ gron http://headers.jsontest.com/
json = {};
json.Host = "headers.jsontest.com";
json["User-Agent"] = "Go-http-client/1.1";
json["X-Cloud-Trace-Context"] = "6917a823919477919dbc1523584ba25d/11970839830843610056";
Or from stdin:
▶ curl -s http://headers.jsontest.com/ | gron
json = {};
json.Accept = "*/*";
json.Host = "headers.jsontest.com";
json["User-Agent"] = "curl/7.43.0";
json["X-Cloud-Trace-Context"] = "c70f7bf26661c67d0b9f2cde6f295319/13941186890243645147";
Grep for something and easily see the path to it:
▶ gron testdata/two.json | grep twitter
json.contact.twitter = "@TomNomNom";
The output of gron is valid JavaScript:
▶ gron testdata/two.json > tmp.js
▶ echo "console.log(json);" >> tmp.js
▶ nodejs tmp.js
{ contact: { email: '[email protected]', twitter: '@TomNomNom' },
github: 'https://github.com/tomnomnom/',
likes: [ 'code', 'cheese', 'meat' ],
name: 'Tom' }
▶ gron --help
Transform JSON (from a file, URL, or stdin) into discrete assignments to make it greppable
Usage:
gron [file|url]
Exit Codes:
0 OK
1 Failed to open file
2 Failed to read input
3 Failed to decode JSON
4 Failed to from statements
5 Failed to fetch URL
Examples:
gron /tmp/apiresponse.json
gron http://headers.jsontest.com/
curl -s http://headers.jsontest.com/ | gron
Yes it was! The original version is preserved here for posterity.
Mostly to remove PHP as a dependency. There's a lot of people who work with JSON who don't have PHP installed.
jq is awesome, and a lot more powerful than gron, but with that power comes
complexity. gron aims to make it easier to use the tools you already know, like grep and sed.
gron's primary purpose is to make it easy to find the path to a value in a deeply nested JSON blob when you don't already know the structure; much of jq's power is unlocked only once you know that structure.