Parse error when text is split on multi lines

Question

i'm getting a parse error when I split a text line on multiple lines and show the JSON file on screen with the command "jq . words.json".

The JSON file with the text value on a single line looks like this

{
    "words" : "one two three four five"
}

The command "jq . words.json" works fine and shows the JSON file on screen.

But when i split the value "one two three four five" on two lines and run the same command I get a parse error

{
    "words" : "one two   
    three four five"
                   ^
}

parse error: Invalid string: control characters from U+0000 through U+001F must be escaped at line 3, column 20

The parse error points to the " at the end of the third line.

How can i solve this?

Tia, Anthony

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 01 '18 at 08:03

2

That's because the JSON format is invalid. It should look like this:

{
    "words" : "one two \nthree four five"
}

answered Aug 01 '18 at 08:03

CodiMech25

423
3
9

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 01 '18 at 08:03

1

You have to escape end of line in JSON:

{
  "words" : "one two\nthree four five"
}

answered Aug 01 '18 at 08:03

Michał Grzejszczak

2,491
1
23
26

Minor semantic nit: this is a string that includes an escape sequence that *represents* a newline character, rather than escaping a literal newline character. – chepner Aug 02 '18 at 16:14

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 01 '18 at 13:17

To convert the text with the multi-line string to valid JSON, you could use any-json (https://www.npmjs.com/package/any-json), and pipe that into jq:

$ any-json --input-format=cson split-string.txt
{
    "words": "one two three four five"
}
$ any-json --input-format=cson split-string.txt | jq length
1

For more on handling almost-JSON texts, see the jq FAQ: https://github.com/stedolan/jq/wiki/FAQ#processing-not-quite-valid-json

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered May 30 '20 at 23:31

The parse error points to the " at the end of the third line.

The way jq flags this error may be counterintuitive, but the error in the JSON precedes the indicated quote-mark.

If the error is non-obvious, it may be that an end-quote is missing on the prior key or value. In this case, the value that matches the criteria U+0000 through U+001F could be U+000A, which is the line feed character in ASCII.

In the case of this question, the line feed was inserted intentionally. But, unescaped, this is invalid JSON.

Parse error when text is split on multi lines

4 Answers4