JSON at Work

Chapter 6. JSON Search

JSON Search libraries and tools make it easier to search JSON documents and quickly access the fields that you’re looking for. JSON Search shines when you need to search through a large JSON document returned from a Web API.

In this chapter, we’ll cover the following:

• Making your job easier with JSON Search

• Using the major JSON Search libraries and tools

• Writing Unit Tests that search the content of JSON documents returned by a Web API

In our examples, we’ll use several JSON Search technologies to search JSON data from a Web API deployed on your local machine. We’ll create Unit Tests to execute the searches and check results.

Why JSON Search?

Imagine that the result set from an API call has several hundred (or more) JSON Objects, and you want to use only a subset of the data (key/value pairs) or apply a search filter (based on your criteria). Without JSON Search, you would have to parse the JSON document and sift through a large data structure by writing custom code. This low-level approach is a tedious, code-intensive chore. You have better things to do with your time. The JSON Search libraries and tools shown in this chapter will reduce your work and make your job easier.

JSON Search Libraries and Tools

Many libraries (callable from an application) and command-line tools can search JSON documents. Here are the most common, widely used libraries, which we’ll explore later in this chapter:

• JSONPath

• JSON Pointer

• jq

Honorable Mention