Is there a query language for JSON

Question

Is there a  roughly  SQL or XQuery-like language for querying JSON   I m thinking of very small datasets that map nicely to JSON where it would be nice to easily answer queries such as  what are all the values of X where Y   3  or to do the usual SUM   COUNT type operations   As completely made-up example  something like this      x   2   y   0      x   3   y   1     x   4   y   1    SUM X  WHERE Y  gt  0      would equate to 7  LIST X  WHERE Y  gt  0     would equate to  3 4     I m thinking this would work both client-side and server-side with results being converted to the appropriate language-specific data structure  or perhaps kept as JSON   A quick Googling suggests that people have thought about it and implemented a few things  JAQL   but it doesn t seem like a standard usage or set of libraries has emerged yet  While each function is fairly trivial to implement on its own  if someone has already done it right I don t want to re-invent the wheel   Any suggestions   Edit  This may indeed be a bad idea or JSON may be too generic a format for what I m thinking   The reason for wanting a query language instead of just doing the summing etc functions directly as needed is that I hope to build the queries dynamically based on user-input  Kinda like the argument that  we don t need SQL  we can just write the functions we need   Eventually that either gets out of hand or you end up writing your own version of SQL as you push it further and further   Okay  I know that is a bit of a silly argument  but you get the idea

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You can also use Underscore js which is basically a swiss-knife library to manipulate collections  Using   filter    pluck    reduce you can do SQL-like queries    var data      x   2   y   0     x   3   y   1     x   4   y   1     var posData     filter data  function elt    return elt y  gt  0            x   3   y   1     x   4   y   1    var values     pluck posData   x        3  4   var sum     reduce values  function a  b    return a b         7   Underscore js works both client-side and server-side and is a notable library   You can also use Lo-Dash which is a fork of Underscore js with better performances

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The built-in array filter   method makes most of these so-called javascript query libraries obsolete  You can put as many conditions inside the delegate as you can imagine  simple comparison  startsWith  etc  I haven t tested but you could probably nest filters too for querying inner collections

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You could use linq js   This allows to use aggregations and selectings from a data set of objects  as other structures data    x000D   x000D  var data      x  2  y  0      x  3  y  1      x  4  y  1     x000D   x000D     SUM X  WHERE Y  gt  0     - gt  7 x000D  console log Enumerable From data  Where    y  gt  0   Sum    x     x000D   x000D     LIST X  WHERE Y  gt  0    - gt   3  4  x000D  console log Enumerable From data  Where    y  gt  0   Select    x   ToArray     x000D   lt script src  https   cdnjs cloudflare com ajax libs linq js 2 2 0 2 linq js  gt  lt  script gt  x000D   x000D   x000D

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if you want to use pure javascript try this   x000D   x000D  var object     result    data    point1   x   value  2    foo    bar  7            path    result data value       getValue    o  p    gt  p split      reduce  r  k    gt  r k   o    console log getValue object  path    x000D   x000D   x000D

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I ve just finished a releaseable version of a clientside JS-lib  defiant js  that does what you re looking for  With defiant js  you can query a JSON structure with the XPath expressions you re familiar with  no new syntax expressions as in JSONPath    Example of how it works  see it in browser here http   defiantjs com defiant js demo sum avg htm    var data               x   2   y   0              x   3   y   1              x   4   y   1              x   2   y   1              res   JSON search  data        y  gt  0        console log  res sum  x         9 console log  res avg  x         3 console log  res min  x         2 console log  res max  x         4   As you can see  DefiantJS extends the global object JSON with a search function and the returned array is delivered with aggregate functions  DefiantJS contains a few other functionalities but those are out of the scope for this subject  Anywho  you can test the lib with a clientside XPath Evaluator  I think people not familiar with XPath will find this evaluator useful  http   defiantjs com  xpath evaluator  More information about defiant js http   defiantjs com  https   github com hbi99 defiant js  I hope you find it useful    Regards

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If you are using  NET then Json NET supports LINQ queries over the top of JSON  This post has some examples  It supports filtering  mapping  grouping  etc

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In MongoDB  this is how it would work  in the mongo shell  there exist drivers for a language of your choice    db collection insert   x   2   y   0       notice the     instead of     db collection insert   x   3   y   1    db collection insert   x   4   y   1     db collection aggregate    match    y     gt  0                                 group    id   sum   sum    sum    x        db collection aggregate    match    y     gt  0                                 group    id   list   list    push    x          The first three commands insert the data into your collection   Just start the mongod server and connect with the mongo client     The next two process the data   match filters   group applies the sum and list  respectively

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jq is a JSON query language  mainly intended for the command-line but with bindings to a wide range of programming languages  Java  node js  php       and even available in the browser via jq-web   Here are some illustrations based on the original question  which gave this JSON as an example       x   2   y   0      x   3   y   1     x   4   y   1        SUM X  WHERE Y   0      would equate to 7    map select  y  gt  0     add      LIST X  WHERE Y   0     would equate to  3 4     map  y  gt  0    jq syntax extends JSON syntax  Every JSON expression is a valid jq expression  and expressions such as  1   1 1   and   a    1 1    illustrate how jq extends JSON syntax   A more useful example is the jq expression    a b    which  given the JSON value   a  1   b  2   c   3   evaluates to   a  1   b  2

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The current Jaql implementation targets large data processing using a Hadoop cluster  so it might be more than you need   However  it runs easily without a Hadoop cluster  but still requires the Hadoop code and its dependencies to get compiled  which are mostly included    A small implementation of Jaql that could be embedded in Javascript and the a browser would be a great addition to the project   Your examples above are easily written in jaql    data      x   2   y   0     x   3   y   1     x   4   y   1      data - gt  filter   y  gt  0 - gt  transform   x - gt  sum       7   data - gt  filter   y  gt  0 - gt  transform   x      3 4    Of course  there s much more too  For example      Compute multiple aggregates and change nesting structure   data - gt  group by  y     y into    y  s sum      x   n count     xs      x               y   0   s   2   n   1   xs    2                  y   1   s   7   n   2   xs    3 4         Join multiple data sets   more       y   0   z   5       y   1   z   6     join  data   more where  data y     more y into   data   more              data      x   2   y   0     more      y   0   z   5                data      x   3   y   1     more      y   1   z   6                data      x   4   y   1     more      y   1   z   6       Jaql can be downloaded discussed at http   code google com p jaql

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jmespath works really quite easy and well  http   jmespath org  It is being used by Amazon in the AWS command line interface  so it  s got to be quite stable

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Here s some simple javascript libraries that will also do the trick    Dollar Q is a nice lightweight library  It has a familiar feel to the chaining syntax made popular by jQuery and is only 373 SLOC  SpahQL is a fully featured query language with a syntax similar to XPath  Homepage  Github jFunk is an in progress query language  with a syntax similar to CSS jQuery selectors  It looked promising  but hasn t had any development beyond its in initial commit   added 2014   the jq command line tool has a neat syntax  but unfortunately it is a c library  Example usage    lt  package json jq   dependencies   to entries         select  value   startswith  git       key

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PythonQL offers an embedded syntax that IMHO is an improvement on SQL  principally because  group  window  where  let  etc  can be freely intermixed     cat x py  coding  pythonql data      x   2   y   0     x   3   y   1     x   4   y   1   q    x match   x   as x   y   as y  in data where y  gt  0  print sum q   print list q    q    x match   x   as x   y   as y  as d in data where d  y    gt  0  print sum q      This code shows two different answers to your question  depending on your need to handle the entire structure or just the value  Execution gives you the expected result     python x py 7  3  4  7

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Another way to look at this would be to use mongoDB You can store your JSON in mongo and then query it via the mongodb query syntax

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I ll second the notion of just using your own javascript  but for something a bit more sophisticated you might look at dojo data  Haven t used it but it looks like it gives you roughly the kind of query interface you re looking for

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Google has a project called lovefield  just found out about it  and it looks interesting  though it is more involved than just dropping in underscore or lodash   https   github com google lovefield      Lovefield is a relational query engine written in pure JavaScript  It   also provides help with persisting data on the browser side  e g    using IndexedDB to store data locally  It provides SQL-like syntax and   works cross-browser  currently supporting Chrome 37   Firefox 31   IE   10   and Safari 5 1          Another interesting recent entry in this space called jinqJs   http   www jinqjs com   Briefly reviewing the examples  it looks promising  and the API document appears to be well written      function isChild row      return  row Age  lt  18    Yes     No       var people        Name   Jane   Age  20  Location   Smithtown       Name   Ken   Age  57  Location   Islip       Name   Tom   Age  10  Location   Islip       var result   new jinqJs      from people     orderBy  Age      select   field   Name           field   Age   text   Your Age           text   Is Child   value  isChild            jinqJs is a small  simple  lightweight and extensible javaScript   library that has no dependencies  jinqJs provides a simple way to   perform SQL like queries on javaScript arrays  collections and web   services that return a JSON response  jinqJs is similar to Microsoft s   Lambda expression for  Net  and it provides similar capabilities to   query collections using a SQL like syntax and predicate functionality    jinqJs   s purpose is to provide a SQL like experience to programmers   familiar with LINQ queries

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Sure  how about    JsonPath  Json Query   They all seem to be a bit work in progress  but work to some degree  They are also similar to XPath and XQuery conceptually  even though XML and JSON have different conceptual models  hierarchic vs object struct    EDIT Sep-2015  Actually there is now JSON Pointer standard that allows very simple and efficient traversal of JSON content  It is not only formally specified  but also supported by many JSON libraries  So I would call it actual real useful standard  although due to its limited expressiveness it may or may not be considered Query Language per se

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Whenever possible I would shift all of the querying to the backend on the server  to the SQL DB or other native database type   Reason being is that it will be quicker and more optimized to do the querying    I know that jSON can be stand alone and there may be   - for having a querying language but I cannot see the advantage if you are retrieving data from the backend to a browser  as most of the JSON use cases  Query and filter at the backend to get as small a data that is needed   If for whatever reason you need to query at the front-end  mostly in a browser  then I would suggest just using array filter  why invent something else     That said what I think would be more useful is a transformation API for json   they are more useful since once you have the data you may want to display it in a number of ways  However  again  you can do much of this on the server  which can be much easier to scale  than on the client - IF you are using server lt -- client model   Just my 2 pence worth

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SpahQL is the most promising and well thought out of these  as far as I can tell   I highly recommend checking it out

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I d recommend my project I m working on called jLinq   I m looking for feedback so I d be interested in hearing what you think   If lets you write queries similar to how you would in LINQ     var results   jLinq from records users         you can join records      join records locations   location    locationId    id          write queries on the data      startsWith  firstname    j        or  k     automatically remembers field and command names        even query joined items      equals  location state    TX          and even do custom selections      select function rec            return               fullname   rec firstname         rec lastname              city   rec location city              ageInTenYears    rec age   10                       It s fully extensible too   The documentation is still in progress  but you can still try it online

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OK  this post is a little old  but    if you want to do SQL-like query in native JSON  or JS objects  on JS objects  take a look at https   github com deitch searchjs  It is both a jsql language written entirely in JSON  and a reference implementation  You can say   I want to find all object in an array that have name    John   amp  amp  age   25 as    name  John  age 25  join  AND     The reference implementation searchjs works in the browser as well as as a node npm package  npm install searchjs   It can also do things like complex joins and negation  NOT   It natively ignores case   It doesn t yet do summation or count  but it is probably easier to do those outside

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ObjectPath is simple and ligthweigth query language for JSON documents of complex or unknown structure  It s similar to XPath or JSONPath  but much more powerful thanks to embedded arithmetic calculations  comparison mechanisms and built-in functions      Python version is mature and used in production  JS is still in beta   Probably in the near future we will provide a full-fledged Javascript version  We also want to develop it further  so that it could serve as a simpler alternative to Mongo queries

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Update  XQuery 3 1 can query either XML or JSON - or both together   And XPath 3 1 can too   The list is growing     JSONiq  based on XQuery  UNQL  like SQL  JaQL  functional  JsonPath  XPath-like  Json Query  sort of XPath-like  GraphQL  template-based  typed

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Check out https   github com niclasko Cypher js  note  I m the author   It s a zero-dependency Javascript implementation of the Cypher graph database query language along with a graph database  It runs in the browser  tested with Firefox  Chrome  IE    With relevance to the question  It can be used to query JSON endpoints   load json from  http   url endpoint  as l return l limit 10   Here s an example of querying a complex JSON document and performing analysis on it   Cypher js JSON query example

[json] Is there a query language for JSON?

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