Bash: get json value

Question

sorry for simplicity, but I am new to bash.

I am curling a link that returns me json file:

$output=$(curl localhost:9000/user/1)

This returns me:

{"userId":"1", "username":"sam"}

How can echo username sam?

These didn't work:

echo $output.userId
echo $output["userId"]

Install the `jq` program, it's a JSON parser utility. – Barmar Sep 23 '16 at 19:05 — Barmar, Sep 23 '16 at 19:05

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 23 '16 at 19:05

0

Using jq:

jq .username <<<"$output"

answered Sep 23 '16 at 19:05

Charles Duffy

1

Thanks, but is there a simpler way to do it without jq? – AmazingDayToday Sep 23 '16 at 19:08
Not a reliable, robust way that'll hold up to changes in the data format in the future. – Charles Duffy Sep 23 '16 at 19:09
got it, thanks @Charles Duffy – AmazingDayToday Sep 23 '16 at 19:09
(If you can't install `jq`, you *can* get a JSON parser from somewhere else -- for instance, Python has a good one, and it's easy to have a shell function that asks Python to parse some JSON for you; there should already be Q&A entries in the knowledgebase describing how to do that). – Charles Duffy Sep 23 '16 at 19:10

1 Answers1