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jqlang
jq
C2012–2026
jqlang / jq

jq

Command-line JSON processor

Command LineData & Databases
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
79Distinct people
104Mentions
2Explicit recommenders
36.1KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Command-line JSON processor

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

I highly recommend anyone to look at jq's VM implementation some time, it's kind of mind-blowing how it works under the hood:…

bouk used a recommendation phrase. 2 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:04:58 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year104 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2012-10-21 17:50:32 UTC to 2026-03-29 02:02:20 UTC.

05101520252012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20122013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 12 mentions; 0 submissions, 12 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 9 mentions; 0 submissions, 9 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 8 mentions; 3 submissions, 5 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 14 mentions; 3 submissions, 11 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 25 mentions; 5 submissions, 20 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 11 mentions; 0 submissions, 11 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 8 mentions; 2 submissions, 6 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20122012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC12012
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC707
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC909
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC835
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC14311
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC25520
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC11011
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC826
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
jq jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor akin to sed,awk,grep, and friends for JSON data. It's written in portable C and has zero runtime dependencies, allowing you to easily slice, filter, map, and transform structured data. Documentation Official Documentation: jqlang.org Try jq Online: play.jqlang.org Installation Prebuilt Binaries Download the latest releases from the GitHub release page. The platform-specific assets are standalone executables, not archives. On macOS and Linux, rename the downloaded file to jq and make it executable with chmod +x jq. Docker Image Pull the jq image to start quickly with Docker. Run with Docker Example: Extracting the version from a package.json file docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/jqlang/jq:latest < package.json '.version' Example: Extracting the version from a package.json file with a mounted volume docker run --rm -i -v "$PWD:$PWD" -w "$PWD" ghcr.io/jqlang/jq:latest '.version' package.json Building from source Dependencies libtool make automake autoconf Instructions git submodule update --init # if building from git to get oniguruma autoreconf -i # if building from git ./configure --with-oniguruma=builtin make clean # if upgrading from a version previously built from source make -j8 make check sudo make install sudo ldconfig # on Linux, if jq cannot find libjq.so Build a statically linked version: make clean make LDFLAGS=-all-static If you're not using the latest git version but instead building a released tarball (available on the release page), skip the autoreconf step, and flex or bison won't be needed. Cross-Compilation For details on cross-compilation, check out the GitHub Actions file and the cross-compilation wiki page. Community & Support Questions & Help: Stack Overflow (jq tag) Chat & Community: Join us on Discord Wiki & Advanced Topics: Explore the Wiki License jq is released under the MIT License. jq's documentation is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY 3.0. jq uses parts of the open source C library "decNumber", which is distributed under ICU License
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

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