Turn JSON into a Markdown table

Goal: Read a JSON file, keep only the records you care about, and render them as a Markdown table.

Prerequisites: The built-in json module. JSON has no built-in input format, so read the file with -I raw to get its text as a single string.

Query

$ mq -I raw 'import "json" | json::json_parse | get("users") | filter(fn(u): u["active"];) | json::json_to_markdown_table' users.json

Input (users.json)

{
  "users": [
    { "name": "Alice", "role": "admin", "active": true },
    { "name": "Bob", "role": "dev", "active": false },
    { "name": "Carol", "role": "dev", "active": true }
  ]
}

Output

| name | role | active |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Alice | admin | true |
| Carol | dev | true |

Notes

• json_parse returns dicts and arrays, so the usual functions apply: get("users") reads a key, filter and map work on the array.
• Drop the filter to render every record. json_to_markdown_table takes the column names from the first record’s keys.
• To get JSON back instead of a table, use -F json. This lists the names: mq -I raw -F json 'import "json" | json::json_parse | get("users") | map(fn(u): u["name"];)' users.json returns ["Alice", "Bob", "Carol"].
• json::json_stringify(data) turns a value back into a JSON string, for example to embed it in a larger string.