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Basic usage

fq tries to behave the same way as jq as much as possible, so you can do:

fq . file
fq < file
cat file | fq
fq . < file
fq . *.png *.mp3
fq '.frames[0]' *.mp3
fq '.frames[-1] | tobytes' file.mp3 > last_frame

Common usages

# recursively display decode tree but truncate long arrays
fq d file
# same as
fq display file

# display all bytes for each value
fq dd file
# same as
fq 'd({display_bytes: 0})' file

# display 200 bytes for each value
fq 'd({display_bytes: 200})' file

# recursively display decode tree without truncating
fq da file
# same as
fq 'd({array_truncate: 0})' file

# display a specific decode tree one level
fq '.path[1].to.value' file
# display a specific decode tree all levels
fq '.path[1].to.value | d' file
fq '.path[1].to.value | dd' file
fq '.path[1].to.value | da' file

# recursively and verbosely display decode tree
fq dv file
# same as
fq 'd({verbose: true})' file

# JSON representation for whole file
fq tovalue file
# or use -V (--value-output) that does tovalue automatically
fq -V . file
# or -Vr if the value is a string and you want a "raw" string
fq -Vr .path.to.string file
# JSON but raw bit fields truncated
fq -o bits_format=truncate tovalue file
# JSON but raw bit fields as md5 hex string
fq -o bits_format=md5 tovalue file
# JSON but raw bit fields as byte arrays
fq -o bits_format=byte_array tovalue file
# look up a path
fq '.some[1].path' file
# look up a path and output JSON
fq -V '.some[1].path' file
# can be a query that outputs multiple values
# this outputs first and last value in .same array and .path, three values in total
fq -V '.some[0,-1], .path' file

# grep whole tree by value
fq 'grep("^prefix")' file
fq 'grep(123)' file
# grep whole tree by condition
fq 'grep_by(. >= 100 and . =< 100)' file

# recursively look for values fulfilling some condition
fq '.. | select(.type=="trak")?' file
fq 'grep_by(.type=="trak")' file
# grep_by(f) is alias for .. | select(f)?, that is: recurse, select and ignore errors

# recursively look for decode value roots for a format
fq '.. | select(format=="jpeg")' file
# can also use grep_by
fq 'grep_by(format=="jpeg")' file

# recursively look for first decode value root for a format
fq 'first(.. | select(format=="jpeg"))' file
fq 'first(grep_by(format=="jpeg"))' file

# decode file as mp4 and return a result even if there are some errors
fq -d mp4 file.mp4
# decode file as mp4 and also ignore validity assertions
fq -o force=true -d mp4 file.mp4

CLI arguments

Most of jq's CLI arguments work with fq. But here are some additional ones specific to fq:

Decode format --decode, -d NAME

Force format to decode instead of probing.

NAME is a name of a format, ex -d mp4, see -h formats for list of formats.

Interactive REPL --repl,-i

Start interactive REPL.

Can be used with no input, one and multiple inputs, for example just fq -i starts a REPL with null input, fq -i 123 with the number 123 as input, fq -i . a b with two files as input. This also works with --slurp. In the REPL it is also possible to start a sub-REPLs by ending a query with <query> | repl, use ctrl-D to exit the sub-REPL. The sub-REPL will evaluate separately on each output from the query it was started. Use [<query>] | repl if you want to "slurp" into an array.

Set option --options,-o KEY=VALUE|@PATH

KEY is name of option

VALUE will be interpreted as a JSON value if possible otherwise a string, ex -o name=abc and -o name='"abc"' is the same.

@PATH will read string from file at PATH.

Specify a global option or a format option, ex: -o decode_samples=false would for some container decoders like mp4 and matroska disable decoding of samples.

Value output --value-output, -V

Output JSON value instead of decode tree. Use -Vr if you want raw string (no quotes).

Display output

display or d is the main function for displaying values and is also the function that will be used if no other output function is explicitly used. If its input is a decode value it will output a dump and tree structure or otherwise it will output as JSON.

Below demonstrates some usages:

First and second example does the same thing, inputs "hello" to display.

fq demo

In the next few examples we select out the first "edit list" box in an mp4 file, it's a list of which part of the media track to be included during playback, and displays it in various ways.

Default if not explicitly used display will only show the root level:

fq demo

First row shows a ruler with byte offset into the line and jq path for the value.

The columns are:

  • Start address for the line. For example we see that type starts at 0xd60 (row) + 0x09 (column).
  • Hex representation of input bits for value. Will show the whole byte even if the value only partially uses bits from it.
  • ASCII representation of input bits for value. Will show the whole byte even if the value only partially uses bits from it.
  • Tree structure of decoded value, symbolic value and description.

Notation:

  • {} value is an object that might have nested values.
  • [start:end] value is an array with index starting at start and ending at end (exclusive).

With display or d it will recursively show the whole tree:

fq demo

Same but verbose dv:

fq demo

In verbose mode bit ranges and array element names as shown.

Bit ranges uses <start-byte>[.<bits>]-<end-byte>[.<bits>] as notation where .<bits> is left out if byte aligned. For example type starts at byte 0xd69 bit 0 (.0 is left out) and ends at 0xd6d bit 0 (exclusive) and have a size of 4 bytes.

This verbosely displays the header of the second frame in an mp3 file which has a bunch of non-byte-aligned fields:

fq demo

Here the sync pattern starts at 0xb79 (bit 0) and ends at 0xb7a.3 (exclusive) and has a size of 1 byte and 3 bits, 11 bits in total (8+3).

There are also some other display aliases:

  • da is display({array_truncate: 0}) don't truncate arrays.
  • dd is display({array_truncate: 0, string_truncate: 0, display_bytes: 0}) don't truncate arrays and raw bytes.
  • dv is display({array_truncate: 0, string_truncate: 0, verbose: true}) don't truncate arrays and display verbosely.
  • ddv is display({array_truncate: 0, string_truncate: 0, display_bytes: 0 verbose: true}) don't truncate arrays and raw bytes. and display verbosely.

Interactive REPL

The interactive REPL has auto completion and nested REPL support:

# start REPL with null input
$ fq -i
null>
# same as
$ fq -ni
null>

# in the REPL you will see a prompt indicating current input and you can type jq expression to evaluate.

# start REPL with one file as input
$ fq -i . doc/file.mp3
mp3>

$ fq -i . doc/file.mp3
# basic arithmetic and jq expressions
mp3> 1+1
2
mp3> 1, 2, 3 | . * 2
2
4
6
mp3> [1, 2, 3] | add
6
# "." is the identity function which just returns current input, the mp3 file.
mp3> .
# access the first frame in the mp3 file
mp3> .frames[0]
# start a new nested REPL with first frame as input
mp3> .frames[0] | repl
# prompt shows "path" to current input and that it's an mp3_frame.
# Ctrl-D to exit REPL or to shell if last REPL
> .frames[0] mp3_frame> ^D
# "jq" value of layer in first frame
mp3> .frames[0].header.layer | tovalue
3
mp3> .frames[0].header.layer * 2
6
# symbolic value, same as "jq" value
mp3> .frames[0].header.layer | tosym
3
# actual underlying decoded value
mp3> .frames[0].header.layer | toactual
1
# description of value
mp3> .frames[0].header.layer | todescription
"MPEG Layer 3"
mp3> ^D
$

Use Ctrl-D to exit and Ctrl-C to interrupt current evaluation.

Example usages

Second mp3 frame header as JSON

fq '.frames[1].header | tovalue' file.mp3

Byte start position for the first 10 mp3 frames in an array

fq '.frames[0:10] | map(tobytesrange.start)' file.mp3

Decode at range

# decode byte range 100 to end as mp3_frame
fq -d bytes '.[100:] | mp3_frame | d' file.mp3
# decode byte range 10 bytes from .somefield and preserve relative position in file
fq '.somefield | tobytesrange[10:] | mp3_frame | d' file.mp3

Show AVC SPS difference between two mp4 files

-n tells fq to not have an implicit input, f is a function to select out some interesting value, call diff with two arguments, decoded value for a.mp4 and b.mp4 filtered thru f.

fq -n 'def f: .. | select(format=="avc_sps"); diff(input|f; input|f)' a.mp4 b.mp4

Extract first JPEG found in file

Recursively look for the first value that is a jpeg decode value root. Use tobytes to get bytes for value. Redirect bytes to a file.

fq 'first(.. | select(format=="jpeg")) | tobytes' file > file.jpeg

Sample size histogram

Recursively look for a all sample size boxes "stsz" and use ? to ignore errors when doing .type on arrays etc. Save reference to box, count unique values, save the max, output the path to the box and output a histogram scaled to 0-100.

fq '.. | select(.type=="stsz")? as $stsz | .entries | count | max_by(.[1])[1] as $m | ($stsz | topath | path_to_expr), (.[] | "\(.[0]): \((100*.[1]/$m)*"=") \(.[1])") | println' file.mp4

Find TCP streams that looks like HTTP GET requests in a PCAP file

Use grep to recursively find strings matching a regexp.

fq '.tcp_connections | grep("GET /.* HTTP/1.?")' file.pcap

Use representation of a format

Some formats like msgpack, bson etc are used to represent some data structure. In those cases the torepr function can be used to get the representation.

# whole represented value
fq -d msgpack torepr file.msgpack
# value of the key "field" from the represented value
fq -d msgpack `torepr.field` file.msgpack
# query or transform represented value
fq -d msgpack 'torepr | ...' file.msgpack

Widest PNG in a directory

$ fq -rn '[inputs | [input_filename, first(.chunks[] | select(.type=="IHDR") | .width)]] | max_by(.[1]) | .[0]' *.png

What values include the byte at position 0x123

$ fq '.. | select(scalars and in_bytes_range(0x123))' file

Support formats

See formats

The jq language

fq is based on the jq language and for basic usage its syntax is similar to how object and array access looks in JavaScript or JSON path, .food[10] etc. but it can do much more and is a very expressive language.

To get the most out of fq it's recommended to learn more about jq, here are some good starting points:

For a more convenient jq experience these might be interesting:

Common beginner gotchas are:

  • jq's use of ; and ,. jq uses ; as argument separator and , as output separator. To call a function f with two arguments use f(1; 2). If you do f(1, 2) you pass a single argument 1, 2 (a lambda expression that outputs 1 and then outputs 2) to f.
  • Expressions can return or "output" zero or more values. This is how loops, foreach etc is achieved.
  • Expressions have one implicit input and output value. This how pipelines like 1 | . * 2 work.

Differences to jq

  • All gojq's differences to jq. Notably it adds support for arbitrary-precision integers.
  • Supports raw strings using back-ticks. `\(1234)\u1234` results in the string "\\(1234)\\u1234".
  • Supports hexadecimal 0xab, octal 0o77 and binary 0b101 integer literals. Also support grouping using underscore 0xaa_bb_cc_dd.
  • Try include using a ending question mark include "file?"; that doesn't fail if file is missing or has errors.
  • Some values can act as an object with keys even when it's an array, number etc.
  • There can be keys hidden from keys and [].
  • Some values are readonly and can't be updated or will convert to JSON on update.

Types specific to fq

fq has two additional types compared to jq, decode value and binary. In standard jq expressions they will in most cases behave as some standard jq type.

Decode value

This type is returned by decoders and it is used to represent parts of the decoded input. It can act as all standard jq types, object, array, number, string etc.

Each decode value has these properties:

  • A bit range in the input
    • Can be accessed as a binary using tobits/tobytes. Use the start and size keys to access position and size.
    • .name as bytes .name | tobytes
    • Bit 4-8 of .name as bits .name | tobits[4:8]

Each non-compound decode value has these properties:

  • An actual value:
    • This is the decoded representation of the bits, a number, string, bool etc.
    • Can be accessed using toactual.
  • An optional symbolic value:
    • Is usually a mapping of the actual to symbolic value, ex: map number to a string value.
    • Can be accessed using tosym.
  • An optional description:
    • Can be accessed using todescription
  • parent is the parent decode value
  • parents is the all parent decode values
  • topath is the jq path for the decode value
  • torepr convert decode value to its representation if possible

The value of a decode value is the symbolic value if available and otherwise the actual value. To explicitly access the value use tovalue. In most expressions this is not needed as it will be done automatically.

Binary

Binaries are raw bits with a unit size, 1 (bits) or 8 (bytes), that can have a non-byte aligned size. Will act as byte padded strings in standard jq expressions.

Use tobits and tobytes to create them from decode values, strings, numbers or binary arrays. tobytes will, if needed zero pad most significant bits to be byte aligned.

There is also tobitsrange and tobytesrange which does the same thing but will preserve its source range when displayed.

  • "string" | tobytes produces a binary with UTF8 codepoint bytes.
  • 1234 | tobits produces a binary with the unsigned big-endian integer 1234 with enough bits to represent the number. Use tobytes to get the same but with enough bytes to represent the number. This is different to how numbers work inside binary arrays where they are limited to 0-255.
  • ["abc", 123, ...] | tobytes produce a binary from a binary array. See binary array below.
  • .[index] access bit or byte at index index. Index is in units.
    • [0x12, 0x34, 0x56] | tobytes[1] is 0x35
    • [0x12, 0x34, 0x56] | tobits[3] is 1
  • .[start:], .[start:end] or .[:end] is normal jq slice syntax and will slice the binary from start to end. start and end is in units.
    • [0x12, 0x34, 0x56] | tobytes[1:2] will be a binary with the byte 0x34
    • [0x12, 0x34, 0x56] | tobits[4:12] will be a binary with the byte 0x23
    • [0x12, 0x34, 0x56] | tobits[4:20] will be a binary with the byte 0x23, 0x45
    • [0x12, 0x34, 0x56] | tobits[4:20] | tobytes[1:] will be a binary with the byte 0x45,
    • Both .[index] and .[start:end] support negative indices to index from end.
  • explode output an array with all byte or bits as integers.

Binary array

Is an array of numbers, strings, binaries or other nested binary arrays. When used as input to tobits/tobytes the following rules are used:

  • Number is a byte with value be 0-255
  • String it's UTF8 codepoint bytes
  • Binary as is
  • Binary array used recursively

Binary arrays are similar to and inspired by Erlang iolist.

Some examples:

[0, 123, 255] | tobytes will be binary with 3 bytes 0, 123 and 255

[0, [123, 255]] | tobytes same as above

[0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0 | tobits] will be binary with 1 byte, 0x66 an "f"

[(.a | tobytes[-10:]), 255, (.b | tobits[:10])] | tobytes the concatenation of the last 10 bytes of .a, a byte with value 255 and the first 10 bits of .b.

Functions

fq has all the same standard library jq functions and in addition some new ones.

Additional generic functions

grep_by(f)

Recursively select using a filter. Ex: grep_by(. > 180 and . < 200), first(grep_by(format == "id3v2")).

group

Group values, same as group_by(.).

streaks, streaks_by(f)

Like group but groups streaks based on condition.

count, count_by(f)

Like group but counts groups lengths based on condition.

delta, delta_by(f)

Array with difference between consecutive. delta is same as delta_by(.b - .a).

chunk($size)

Split array or string into $size length chunks. Last chunk might be shorter.

path_to_expr

Converts a path value ["key", 1] to a string ".key[1]".

expr_to_path

Converts from a string ".key[1]" to path value ["key", 1].

diff($a; $b)

Produce a diff between $a and $b. Differences are represented as a object {a: <value from a>, b: <value from b>}.

band, bor, bxor, bsl, bsr, bnot.

Bitwise functions. Works the same as jq math functions. Functions with no arguments like 1 | bnot uses only input, functions with more than one argument ignores input, bsl(1; 3).

repl/repl($opts)

Nested REPL. Must be last in a pipeline. 1 | repl, can "slurp" outputs. Ex: 1, 2, 3 | repl, [1,2,3] | repl({compact: true}).

slurp("<name>")

Slurp outputs and save them to $name. Must be last in the pipeline. Will be available as a global array $name. Ex 1,2,3 | slurp("a"), $a[] same as spew("a").

spew/spew("<name>")

Output previously slurped values.

spew

Outputs all slurps as an object. spew("<name>") outputs one slurp. Ex: spew("a").

paste

Read string from stdin until ^D. Useful for pasting text. Ex: paste | from_pem | asn1_ber | repl read from stdin then decode and start a new sub-REPL with result.

Format decode functions

Format decode functions are available in two forms, just mp3 or mp3($opts) that returns a decode value even on error and from_mp3 or from_mp3($opts) which throws error on decode error.

The the only general format option currently is force to ignore decoder asserts. For example to decode as mp3 and ignore assets do mp3({force: true}) or decode("mp3"; {force: true}). From command line you can either do fq -d mp3 -o force=true . file.mp3 or fq -d bytes 'mp3({force: true})' file.mp3.

Some formats has own options that can be specificed as part of $opts or as -o name=value. Too see options for a format do fq -h mp3 or help(mp3) in a REPL. From command line you can either do fq -d mp3 -o max_sync_seek=100 . file.mp3 or fq -d bytes 'mp3({max_sync_seek: 100})' file.mp3.

decode, decode("<format>"), decode("<format>"; $opts)

Decode format.

probe, probe($opts)

Probe and decode format.

<format>, <format>($opts)

Same as decode("<format>") and decode("<format>"; $opts). Decode as format and return decode value even on decode error.

from_<format>, from_<format>($opts)

Same as decode("<format>") and decode("<format>"; $opts) decode as format but throw error on decode error.

Note that jq sometimes uses the notation name/0, name/1 etc in error messages and documentation which means <function-name>/<arity>. Same function names with different arity are treated as separate functions, but are usually related in some way in practice.

print, println, printerr, printerrln

Print string or if not a string compact JSON value to stdout or stderr.

root

Root decode value for decode value.

buffer_root

Root decode value of buffer for decode value.

format_root

Root decode value of format for decode value.

parent

Parent decode value for decode value.

parents

Outputs all parent decode values from decode value.

topath

Path for decode value. Use path_to_expr to get a string representation.

tovalue, tovalue($opts)

Symbolic, if available, or actual value for decode value.

toactual, toactual($opts)

Actual value for decode value.

tosym, tosym($opts)

Symbolic value for decode value.

todescription

Description for decode value.

torepr

Converts decode value into what it represents. For example converts msgpack decode value into a value representing its JSON representation.

Display functions

Display shows hexdump, ASCII and tree column dump for decode values and jq value for other types.

d/d($opts)

display value and truncate long arrays and binaries.

da/da($opts)

Display value and don't truncate arrays.

dd/dd($opts)

Display value and don't truncate arrays or binaries.

dv/dv($opts)

Verbosely display value and don't truncate arrays but truncate binaries.

ddv/ddv($opts)

Verbosely display value and don't truncate arrays or binaries.

hd/hexdump

Hexdump value.

Binary values

Binary values represents raw bits or bytes. When used in standard jq expressions they will behave as strings (UTF-8) with some exceptions listed below.

  • All regexp functions work with binary as input and pattern argument with these differences compared to when using string input:
    • All offset and length will be in bytes.
    • For capture the .string value is a binary.
    • If pattern is a binary it will be matched literally and not as a regexp.
    • If pattern is a binary or flags include "b" each input byte will be read as separate code points
  • explode is overloaded to work with binary. Will explode into array of the unit of the binary.
  • .[start:end], .[:end], .[start:] - Slice binary from start to end preserve source range.

grep($v), grep($v; $flags), vgrep($v), vgrep($v; $flags), bgrep($v), bgrep($v; $flags)

Recursively match $v.

$v is a scalar to match, where a string is treated as a regexp. A binary will match exact bytes. $flags argument are regexp flags with additional flag "b" that will treat each byte in the input binary as a code point. This makes it possible to match exact bytes.

fgrep($v), fgrep($v; $flags)

Recursively match field name in for decode value.

tobits

Transform input to binary with bit as unit and don't preserve source range.

tobitsrange

Transform input to binary with bit as unit and preserve source range.

tobytes

Transform input to binary with byte as unit and don't preserve source range.

tobytesrange

Transform input to binary with byte as unit and preserve source range.

open

Open file for reading.

Naming inconsistencies

jq's naming conversion is a bit inconsistent, some standard library functions are named tojson while others from_entries. fq follows this tradition a bit by but tries to use snake_case unless there is a good reason.

Here are all the non-snake_case functions added by. Most of them deal with decode and binary values which are new "primitive" types:

  • toactual
  • tobits
  • tobitsrange
  • tobytes
  • tobytesrange
  • todescription
  • topath
  • torepr
  • tosym
  • tovalue

Encodings, serializations and hashes

In addition to binary formats fq also support reading to and from encodings and serialization formats.

At the moment fq does not have any dedicated argument for serialization formats but raw string input -R slurp -s and raw string output -r can make things easier. The combination -Rs will read all inputs into one string (same as jq).

Note that from* functions output jq values and to* takes jq values as input so in some cases not all information will be properly preserved. For example, for the element and attribute order might change and text and comment nodes might move or be merged. yq might be a better tool if that is needed.

Some example usages:

# read yml (format is probed, use -d yaml to force) and do some query
$ fq '...' file.yml

# convert YAML to JSON
# note -r for raw string output, without a JSON string with JSON would outputted
$ fq -r 'tojson({indent:2})' file.yml

# add token to URL
$ echo -n "https://host.org" | fq -Rsr 'from_url | .user.username="token" | tourl'
https://[email protected]

# top 3 hosts in src or href attributes:
# -d to decode as html, can't be probed as html5 parsers always produce some parse tree
# [...] to start collect values into an array
# .. | ."@src"?, ."@href"? | values, recurse and try (?) to get src and href attributes and filter out nulls
# from_url.host | values, parse as url and filter out those without a host
# count to count unique values, returns [[key, count], ...]
# reverse sort by count and pick first 3
# map [key, count] tuples into {key: key, values: count}
# from_entries, convert into object
$ curl -s https://www.discogs.com/ | fq -d html '[.. | ."@src"?, ."@href"? | values | from_url.host | values] | count | sort_by(-.[1])[0:3] | map({key: .[0], value: .[1]}) | from_entries'
{
  "blog.discogs.com": 9,
  "st.discogs.com": 10,
  "www.discogs.com": 14
}

# shows how serialization functions can be used on any string, how to transform values and output some other format
# read and decode zip file and start an interactive REPL
$ fq  -i . <(curl -sL https://github.com/stefangabos/world_countries/archive/master.zip)
# select from interesting xml file
zip> .local_files[] | select(.file_name == "world_countries-master/data/countries/en/world.xml").uncompressed | repl
# convert xml into jq value
> .local_files[95].uncompressed string> from_xml | repl
# sort countries by and select the first one
>> object> .countries.country | sort_by(."@name") | first | repl
# see what current input is
>>> object> .
{
  "@alpha2": "af",
  "@alpha3": "afg",
  "@id": "4",
  "@name": "Afghanistan"
}
# remove "@" prefix from keys and convert to YAML and print it
>>> object> with_entries(.key |= .[1:]) | to_yaml | print
alpha2: af
alpha3: afg
id: "4"
name: Afghanistan
# exit all REPLs back to shell
>>> object> ^D
>> object> ^D
> .local_files[95].uncompressed string> ^D
zip> ^D

  • from_xml/from_xml($opts) Parse XML into jq value.
    {seq: true} preserve element ordering if more than one sibling.
    {array: true} use nested [name, attributes, children] arrays to represent elements. Attributes will be null if none and children will be [] if none, this is to make it easier to work with as the array as 3 values. to_xml does not require this.

  • from_html/from_html($opts) Parse HTML into jq value.
    Similar to from_xml but parses html5 in non-script mode. Will always have a html root with head and body elements.
    {array: true} use nested arrays to represent elements.
    {seq: true} preserve element ordering if more than one sibling.

  • to_xml/to_xml($opts}) Serialize jq value into XML.
    {indent: number} indent child elements.
    Assumes object representation if input is an object, and nested arrays if input is an array.
    Will automatically add a root doc element if jq value has more then one root element.
    If a #seq is found on at least one element all siblings will be sort by sequence number. Attributes are always sorted.

    XML elements can be represented as jq value in two ways, as objects (inspired by mxj and xml.com's Converting Between XML and JSON ) or nested arrays. Both representations are lossy and might lose ordering of elements, text nodes and comments. In object representation from_xml, from_html and to_xml support {seq:true} option to parse/serialize {"#seq"=<number>} attributes to preserve element sibling ordering.

    The object version is denser and convenient to query, the nested arrays version is probably easier to use when generating XML.

    Let's assume $xml is this XML document as a string:

    <doc>
  <child attr="1"></child>
  <child attr="2">text</child>
  <other>text</other>
</doc>

    With object representation an element is represented as:

    • Attributes as @ prefixed @<key> keys.
    • Text nodes as #text.
    • Comment nodes as #comment keys.
    • For explicit sibling ordering #seq keys with a number, can be negative, assumed zero if missing.
    • Child element with only text as <name> key with text as value.
    • Child element with more than just text as <name> key with value an object.
    • Multiple child element siblings with same name as name key with value as array with strings and objects.
    > $xml | from_xml
{
  "doc": {
    "child": [
      {
        "@attr": "1"
      },
      {
        "#text": "text",
        "@attr": "2"
      }
    ],
    "other": "text"
  }
}

    With nested array representation, an array with these values ["<name>", {attributes...}, [children...]]

    • Index 0 is an element name.
    • Index 1 object attributes (including #text and #comment keys).
    • Index 2 array of child elements.

    > $xml | from_xml({array: true})
[
  "doc",
  [
    [
      "child",
      {
        "attr": "1"
      }
    ],
    [
      "child",
      {
        "#text": "text",
        "attr": "2"
      }
    ],
    [
      "other",
      {
        "#text": "text"
      }
    ]
  ]
]

    Parse and include #seq attributes if needed:

    > $xml | from_xml({seq:true})
{
  "doc": {
    "child": [
      {
        "#seq": 0,
        "@attr": "1"
      },
      {
        "#seq": 1,
        "#text": "text",
        "@attr": "2"
      }
    ],
    "other": {
      "#seq": 2,
      "#text": "text"
    }
  }
}

    Select values in <doc>, remove <child>, add a <new> element, serialize to xml with 2 space indent and print the string

    > $xml | from_xml.doc | del(.child) | .new = "abc" | {root: .} | to_xml({indent: 2}) | println
<root>
  <new>abc</new>
  <other>text</other>
</root>

JSON and jq-flavoured JSON

  • fromjson Parse JSON into jq value.
  • tojson/tojson($opt) Serialize jq value into JSON.
    {indent: number} indent array/object values.
  • from_jq Parse jq-flavoured JSON into jq value.
  • to_jq/to_jq($opt) Serialize jq value into jq-flavoured JSON
    {indent: number} indent array/object values.
    jq-flavoured JSON has optional key quotes, # comments and can have trailing comma in arrays.
  • from_jsonl Parse JSON lines into jq array.
  • to_jsonl Serialize jq array into JSONL.

Note that fromjson and tojson use different naming conventions as they originate from jq's standard library.

YAML

  • from_yaml Parse YAML into jq value.
  • to_yaml Serialize jq value into YAML.

TOML

  • from_toml Parse TOML into jq value.
  • to_toml Serialize jq value into TOML.

CSV

  • from_csv/from_cvs($opts) Parse CSV into jq value.
    {comma: string} field separator, default ",".
    {comment: string} comment line character, default "#".
    To work with tab separated values you can use fromcvs({comma: "\t"}) or fq -d csv -o 'comma="\t"'
  • to_csv/to_csv($opts) Serialize jq value into CSV.
    {comma: string} field separator, default ",".

XML encoding

  • from_xmlentities Decode XML entities.
  • to_xmlentities Encode XML entities.

URL parts and XML encodings

  • from_urlpath Decode URL path component.
  • to_urlpath Encode URL path component. Whitespace as %20.
  • from_urlencode Decode URL query encoding.
  • to_urlencode Encode URL to query encoding. Whitespace as "+".
  • from_urlquery Decode URL query into object. For duplicates keys value will be an array.
  • to_urlquery Encode object into query string.
  • from_url Decode URL into object. 
    > "schema://user:pass@host/path?key=value#fragment" | from_url
{
  "fragment": "fragment",
  "host": "host",
  "path": "/path",
  "query": {
    "key": "value"
  },
  "rawquery": "key=value",
  "scheme": "schema",
  "user": {
    "password": "pass",
    "username": "user"
  }
}
  • to_url Encode object into URL string.

Binary encodings like hex and base64

  • from_hex Decode hex string to binary.
  • to_hex Encode binary into hex string.
  • from_base64/from_base64($opts) Decode base64 encodings into binary.
    {encoding:string} encoding variant: std (default), url, rawstd or rawurl
  • to_base64/to_base64($opts) Encode binary into base64 encodings.
    {encoding:string} encoding variant: std (default), url, rawstd or rawurl

Hash functions

  • to_md4 Hash binary using md4.
  • to_md5 Hash binary using md5.
  • to_sha1 Hash binary using sha1.
  • to_sha256 Hash binary using sha256.
  • to_sha512 Hash binary using sha512.
  • to_sha3_224 Hash binary using sha3 224.
  • to_sha3_256 Hash binary using sha3 256.
  • to_sha3_384 Hash binary using sha3 384.
  • to_sha3_512 Hash binary using sha3 512.

Text encodings

  • to_iso8859_1 Decode binary as ISO8859-1 into string.
  • from_iso8859_1 Encode string as ISO8859-1 into binary.
  • to_utf8 Encode string as UTF8 into binary.
  • from_utf8 Decode binary as UTF8 into string.
  • to_utf16 Encode string as UTF16 into binary.
  • from_utf16 Decode binary as UTF16 into string.
  • to_utf16le Encode string as UTF16 little-endian into binary.
  • from_utf16le Decode binary as UTF16 little-endian into string.
  • to_utf16be Encode string as UTF16 big-endian into binary.
  • from_utf16be Decode binary as UTF16 big-endian into string.

Options

fq has some general options in addition to decode and decoders specific options. They all use the same -o <name>=<value> argument.

<value> is fuzzily parsed based on the type of the option. Ex: a string can be specified as -o name=string or -o name="string".

-o bits_format=<string>

How to represent raw binary as JSON.

  • -o bits_format=base64 Base64 string.
  • -o bits_format=byte_array Array of bytes (zero bit padded if size is not byte aligned).
  • -o bits_format=hex Hex string.
  • -o bits_format=md5 MD5 hex string (zero bit padded).
  • -o bits_format=snippet Truncated Base64 string prefixed with bit length.
  • -o bits_format=string String with raw bytes (zero bit padded if size is not byte aligned). The string is binary safe internally in fq but bytes not representable as UTF-8 will be lost if turn into JSON (default).
  • -p bits_format=truncate Truncated string.
$ fq -V -o bits_format=base64 . file

In query

tovalue({bits_format: "md5"})

-o skip_gaps=<boolean>

Skip gaps fields (gap0 etc) when using tovalue or -V. Note that this might affect array indexes if one more more gaps fields are skipped in an array.

$ fq -V -o skip_gaps=true . file

In query

tovalue({skip_gaps: true})

-o array_truncate=<number>

By default truncate long array when displaying decode value tree. Use dd or d({array_truncate: 0}) to not truncate.

-o string_truncate=<number>

By default truncate long strings when displaying decode value tree. Use dd or d({string_truncate: 0}) to not truncate.

Color and unicode output

fq by default tries to use colors if possible, this can be disabled with -M. You can also enable usage of unicode characters for improved output by setting the environment variable CLIUNICODE.

Configuration

To add own functions you can use init.fq that will be read from

  • $HOME/Library/Application Support/fq or $HOME/.config/fq on macOS
  • $HOME/.config/fq on Linux, BSD etc
  • %AppData% on Windows

Use as script interpreter

fq can be used as a script interpreter:

mp3_duration.jq:

#!/usr/bin/env fq -d mp3 -rf
[.frames[].header | .sample_count / .sample_rate] | add

Decoded values

When decoding something, using decode or mp3 etc, you a decode value is returned. They behave like normal jq values but has special abilities and is used to represent the decoded structure. Each value always has a name, type and a bit range.

A value has these special keys (TODO: remove, are internal)

  • _actual decoded (not symbol mapped value)
  • _bits bits in range as a binary
  • _buffer_root first decode value for current buffer
  • _bytes bits in range as binary using byte units
  • _description description of value (optional)
  • _error error message (optional)
  • _format name of decoded format (optional, only format root)
  • _format_root first decode value for current format
  • _gap is a bit range gap (was not decoded)
  • _index index in parent array (only for values in arrays)
  • _len bit range length (TODO: rename)
  • _name name of value
  • _out decoded out value
  • _parent parent decode value
  • _path jq path to decode value
  • _root root decode value
  • _start bit range start
  • _stop bit range stop
  • _sym symbolic value (optional)

Own decoders and use as library

TODO

Known issues and useful tricks

Run interactive mode with no input

fq -i
null>

select fails with expected an ... but got: ...

Try add select(...)? to catch and ignore type errors in the select expression.

Manual decode

Sometimes fq fails to decode or you know there is valid data buried inside some binary or maybe you know the format of some gap field. Then you can decode manually.

# try decode a `mp3_frame` that failed to decode
$ fq -d mp3 '.gap0 | mp3_frame' file.mp3
# skip first 10 bytes then decode as `mp3_frame`
$ fq -d bytes '.[10:] | mp3_frame' file.mp3

Use . as input and in a positional argument

The expression .a | f(.b) might not work as expected. . is .a when evaluating the arguments so the positional argument will end up being .a.b. Instead do . as $c | .a | f($c.b).

Building array is slow

Try to use map or foreach to avoid rebuilding the whole array for each append.

Use print and println to produce more friendly compact output

> [[0,"a"],[1,"b"]]
[
  [
    0,
    "a"
  ],
  [
    1,
    "b"
  ]
]
> [[0,"a"],[1,"b"]] | .[] | "\(.[0]): \(.[1])" | println
0: a
1: b

repl argument using function or variable causes variable not defined

true as $verbose | repl({verbose: $verbose}) will currently fail as repl is implemented by rewriting the query to map(true as $verbose | .) | repl({verbose: $verbose}).

error produces no output

null | error behaves as empty.