Flattening nested JSON objects with jq#

I wanted to take a nested set of JSON objects and import them into a SQLite database using sqlite-utils insert - but I wanted to “flatten” some of the nested rows.

Example data:

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{
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  "status": "success",
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  "data": {
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    "generated": "2021-02-18T20:14:02.288Z",
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    "sites": [
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      {
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        "id": "full_data",
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        "name": "Moscone Center South (full data)",
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        "active": true,
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        "location": {
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          "address": "747 Howard St, San Francisco, CA 94103",
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          "url": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Moscone+Center+South,+747+Howard+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94103",
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          "lng": -122.401253,
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          "lat": 37.78392
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        },
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        "info": {
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          "url": "https://sf.gov/location/moscone-center-south-covid-19-vaccine-site"
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        },
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        "booking": {
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          "url": "https://myturn.ca.gov",
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          "dropins": false,
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          "info": null
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        },
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        "access": {
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          "wheelchair": true,
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          "languages": {
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            "en": true,
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            "es": true,
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            "zh": true,
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            "fil": false,
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            "vi": false,
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            "ru": false
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          },
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          "remote_translation": {
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            "available": false,
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            "info": null
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          }
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        },
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        "access_mode": {
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          "walk": true,
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          "drive": false
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        },
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        "open_to": {
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          "everyone": true,
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          "text": "Open to the public"
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        },
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        "appointments": {
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          "available": true,
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          "last_updated": "2021-02-18T20:14:02.288Z"
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        },
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        "eligibility": {
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          "65_and_over": true,
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          "healthcare_workers": true,
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          "education_and_childcare": false,
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          "agriculture_and_food": false,
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          "emergency_services": false
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        }
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      }
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    ]
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  }
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}

I wanted to turn this into an array of non-nested objects, like this:

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[
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  {
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    "id": "full_data",
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    "name": "Moscone Center South (full data)",
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    "active": true,
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    "location_address": "747 Howard St, San Francisco, CA 94103",
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    "location_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Moscone+Center+South,+747+Howard+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94103",
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    "location_lng": -122.401253,
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    "location_lat": 37.78392
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  }
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]

Thanks to this StackOverflow answer I found the following jq fragment:

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[leaf_paths as $path | {
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    "key": $path | join("_"), "value": getpath($path)
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}] | from_entries

This fragment transforms a nested JSON object into a flat one with "location_address" style keys instead.

I like trying these things out in interactive tools - https://www.jqkungfu.com/ is my current favourite, which runs the original jq in your browser compiled to WebAssembly.

I pasted in the example from above and then used this jq query to confirm that it works - the .data.sites[] | [ ... ] pattern here pulls out the ["data"]["sites"] array and applies the flatten transformation to every item within it:

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.data.sites[] | [ [leaf_paths as $path | {"key": $path | join("_"), "value": getpath($path)}] | from_entries ]

It worked!

The final, full recipe I used to pull down the JSON, transform and flatten it and insert it into a SQLite database was this:

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curl 'https://vaccination-site-microservice.vercel.app/api/v1/sites' | \
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  jq .data.sites | jq '
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    [.[] |
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    [leaf_paths as $path | {"key": $path | join("_"), "value": getpath($path)}]
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    | from_entries]
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  ' | \
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  sqlite-utils insert /tmp/sf.db sites -

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Flattening nested JSON objects with jq#