Print json block from a json array on new line joined by '#'

February 1, 2022

I have a json array that looks as below –

[
  {
    "Code": "some code",
    "Name": "some name",
    "Country": "some country",
    "Cost": "some cost",
    "Type": "Some type"
  },{
    "Code": "some code",
    "Name": "some name",
    "Country": "some country",
    "Cost": "some cost",
    "Type": "Some type"
  },{
    "Code": "some code",
    "Name": "some name",
    "Country": "some country",
    "Cost": "some cost",
    "Type": "Some type"
  }
]

I am trying print each json block on a new line with fields separated by '#'

Expected output

some code#some name#some country#some cost#some type
some code#some name#some country#some cost#some type
some code#some name#some country#some cost#some type

I’ve tried the code below which separates the content with '#'. However, it merges all blocks into a single line like this – some code#some name#some country#some cost#some type#some code#some name#some country#some cost#some type#some code#some name#some country#some cost#some type

 cat contents.json | sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//' | awk  -F ': *' 'BEGIN { RS=",\n\"|\n}," } { gsub(/[\n\]\[\}]/,"",$2); if ($2) { printf("%s#", $2); } }'

Please could someone guide me to et this right?

>Solution :

Using jq (as tagged), values gets the field contents and join puts them together. The -r option ensures that raw text is being output (rather than JSON).

jq -r '.[] | values | join("#")' contents.json

some code#some name#some country#some cost#Some type
some code#some name#some country#some cost#Some type
some code#some name#some country#some cost#Some type

Demo

Update: Actually values is not even necessary as join, when applied to an object, will pull out the values itself.

jq -r '.[] | join("#")' contents.json

some code#some name#some country#some cost#Some type
some code#some name#some country#some cost#Some type
some code#some name#some country#some cost#Some type

Demo