using jq to assign multiple output variables

Question

I am trying to use jq to parse information from the TVDB api. I need to pull a couple of fields and assign the values to variables that I can continue to use in my bash script. I know I can easily assign the output to one variable through bash with variable="$(command)" but I need the output to produce multiple variables and I don't want to make to use multiple commands.

I read this documentation:

https://stedolan.github.io/jq/manual/v1.5/#Advancedfeatures

but I don't know if this relevant to what I am trying to do.

jq '.data' produces the following output:

[
  {
    "absoluteNumber": 51,
    "airedEpisodeNumber": 6,
    "airedSeason": 4,
    "airedSeasonID": 680431,
    "dvdEpisodeNumber": 6,
    "dvdSeason": 4,
    "episodeName": "We Will Rise",
    "firstAired": "2017-03-15",
    "id": 5939660,
    "language": {
      "episodeName": "en",
      "overview": "en"
    },
    "lastUpdated": 1490769062,
    "overview": "Clarke and Roan must work together in hostile territory in order to deliver an invaluable asset to Abby and her team."
  }
]

I tried jq '.data | {episodeName:$name}' and jq '.data | .episodeName as $name' just to try and get one working. I don't understand the documentation or even if it's what I'm looking for. Is there a way to do what I am trying to do?

Answer 1

You can use separate variables with read :

read var1 var2 var3 < <(echo $(curl -s 'https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux' | 
     jq -r '.id, .name, .full_name'))

echo "id        : $var1"
echo "name      : $var2"
echo "full_name : $var3"

Using array :

read -a arr < <(echo $(curl -s 'https://api.github.com/repos/torvalds/linux' | 
     jq -r '.id, .name, .full_name'))

echo "id        : ${arr[0]}"
echo "name      : ${arr[1]}"
echo "full_name : ${arr[2]}"

Also you can split jq output with some character :

IFS='|' read var1 var2 var3 var4 < <(curl '......' | jq -r '.data | 
    map([.absoluteNumber, .airedEpisodeNumber, .episodeName, .overview] | 
    join("|")) | join("\n")')

Or use an array like :

set -f; IFS='|' data=($(curl '......' | jq -r '.data | 
    map([.absoluteNumber, .airedEpisodeNumber, .episodeName, .overview] | 
    join("|")) | join("\n")')); set +f

absoluteNumber, airedEpisodeNumber, episodeName & overview are respectively ${data[0]}, ${data[1]}, ${data[2]}, ${data[3]}. set -f and set +f are used to respectively disable & enable globbing.

For the jq part, all your required fields are mapped and delimited with a '|' character with join("|")

If your are using jq < 1.5, you'll have to convert Number to String with tostring for each Number fields eg:

IFS='|' read var1 var2 var3 var4 < <(curl '......' | jq -r '.data | 
    map([.absoluteNumber|tostring, .airedEpisodeNumber|tostring, .episodeName, .overview] | 
    join("|")) | join("\n")')