Converting arrays

One of bash2json’s key features is bash arrays to JSON convertion

Converting JSON object/array to bash array

--from-json action returns executable array command, because bash arrays are not exportable

bash2json '{ "foo": "bar" }' --from-json
# declare -Ag array_8762=([foo]="bar")

If you need specific array name, just add ‘—output=’ parameter

bash2json '{ "foo": "bar" }' --from-json --output="arr"
# declare -Ag arr=([foo]="bar")

If input’s key values contain object, they are parsed as [<key>.<subkey>]="value":

bash2json '{ "foo": "bar", "foo1": { "foo2": "bar" } }' --from-json --output="arr"
# declare -Ag arr=([foo]="bar" [foo1.foo2]="bar")

JSON arrays don’t need extra arguments and are converted into indexed arrays

bash2json '["foo","bar"]' --from-json
# declare -ag array_27431=('foo' 'bar')

You can use custom names as well

bash2json '["foo","bar"]' --from-json --output="arr"
# declare -ag arr=('foo' 'bar')

Now because bash arrays are one-dimensional, you can’t build nested arrays, which means child objects are saved in their original form

bash2json '["foo",{ "hello": "world" }]' --from-json --output="arr"
# declare -ag arr=('foo' '{"hello":"world"}')

Converting bash array to JSON object/array

That’s where comes the tricky part: You can’t pass array as an argument. So instead of passing literal array, you pass the name of array as argument, but any script that is executed via bash doesn’t have access to shell’s arrays. The only option is to source the script

source /path/to/bash2json

prepare our array

declare -A arr=([foo]="bar" [foo1.foo2]="bar") # or declare -Ag

and execute it as function (bash2json)

bash2json --to-json "arr"

If you did everything right, you should see this as result

{"foo1":{"foo2":"bar"},"foo":"bar"}

It works the same way with indexed arrays:

declare -a arr=("foo" "bar");
bash2json --to-json "arr"
# ["foo","bar"]