Tom McKeesick

20240829 Using JQ with style

Note: this article is intended for people that already love JQ!

Did you know that you can configure the colours of jq’s output? This is a great way to make your output more readable in a way that you find visually appealing.

This is detailed in the official docs here

There are only 2 things to know!

1. The ENV var

The JQ_COLORS ENV var is used to configure the colours. The default jq style is expressed as:

JQ_COLORS="0;90:0;37:0;37:0;37:0;32:1;37:1;37:1;34".

Using an ENV var means that configuring this in your shell rc files is easy, and doesn’t slow anything down.

The ENV var contains a colon-separated list of ANSI colour codes, in the following order:

color for null
color for false
color for true
color for numbers
color for strings
color for arrays
color for objects
color for object keys

2. The colours

Part 1 - Style

Part 2 - Colour

value	style
1	bright
2	dim
4	underscore
5	blink
7	reverse
8	hidden

value	color
30	black
31	red
32	green
33	yellow
34	blue
35	magenta
36	cyan
37	white

Examples

Now that we have the required pieces, we can create some different themes!

In order to make this process easier, I like to organise all of the options into named variables so that it’s easier to experiment.

(For my shell, this lives in my .bash_aliases)

_JQ_REGULAR=0
_JQ_BRIGHT=1
_JQ_DIM=2
_JQ_UNDERSCORE=4
_JQ_BLINK=5
_JQ_REVERSE=7
_JQ_HIDDEN=8

_JQ_BLACK=30
_JQ_RED=31
_JQ_GREEN=32
_JQ_YELLOW=33
_JQ_BLUE=34
_JQ_MAGENTA=35
_JQ_CYAN=36
_JQ_WHITE=37

JQ_NULL="$_JQ_DIM;$_JQ_YELLOW"
JQ_TRUE="$_JQ_DIM;$_JQ_YELLOW"
JQ_FALSE="$_JQ_DIM;$_JQ_YELLOW"
JQ_NUMBERS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_CYAN"
JQ_STRINGS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_WHITE"
JQ_ARRAYS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_MAGENTA"
JQ_OBJECTS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_RED"
JQ_OBJECT_KEYS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_YELLOW"

export JQ_COLORS="${JQ_NULL}:${JQ_FALSE}:${JQ_TRUE}:${JQ_NUMBERS}:${JQ_STRINGS}:${JQ_ARRAYS}:${JQ_OBJECTS}:${JQ_OBJECT_KEYS}"

	default
	This theme is generally balanced, with a focus on everything that is not a string value JQ_NULL="$_JQ_UNDERSCORE;$_JQ_WHITE" JQ_TRUE="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_GREEN" JQ_FALSE="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_RED" JQ_NUMBERS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_CYAN" JQ_STRINGS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_WHITE" JQ_ARRAYS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_BLUE" JQ_OBJECTS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_RED" JQ_OBJECT_KEYS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_YELLOW"
	Another balanced theme, this time highlighting string values a little more, and keys a little less JQ_NULL="$_JQ_UNDERSCORE;$_JQ_WHITE" JQ_TRUE="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_YELLOW" JQ_FALSE="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_RED" JQ_NUMBERS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_CYAN" JQ_STRINGS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_YELLOW" JQ_ARRAYS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_BLUE" JQ_OBJECTS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_MAGENTA" JQ_OBJECT_KEYS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_GREEN"
	This theme has a strong focus on clearly displaying "string keys", and the open/close braces of objects `JQ_NULL="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_MAGENTA" JQ_TRUE="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_GREEN" JQ_FALSE="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_RED" JQ_NUMBERS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_CYAN" JQ_STRINGS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_WHITE" JQ_ARRAYS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_BLUE" JQ_OBJECTS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_WHITE" JQ_OBJECT_KEYS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_YELLOW"`
	This theme is designed to be helpful when when searching for keys and null values JQ_NULL="$_JQ_REVERSE;$_JQ_RED" JQ_TRUE="$_JQ_DIM;$_JQ_GREEN" JQ_FALSE="$_JQ_DIM;$_JQ_RED" JQ_NUMBERS="$_JQ_UNDERSCORE;$_JQ_CYAN" JQ_STRINGS="$_JQ_DIM;$_JQ_WHITE" JQ_ARRAYS="$_JQ_REGULAR;$_JQ_BLUE" JQ_OBJECTS="$_JQ_BRIGHT;$_JQ_WHITE" JQ_OBJECT_KEYS="$_JQ_REVERSE;$_JQ_GREEN"

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