jq · lesson 9 of 32 · Filtering & conditions

and / or / not

Combine conditions with and and or, and invert one with not.

Example 1Active devs or QA

Document

{
  "team": "Platform",
  "office": { "city": "Berlin", "floor": 3 },
  "members": [
    { "name": "Ada", "age": 36, "role": "lead", "active": true,
      "email": "[email protected]", "skills": ["rust", "sql"] },
    { "name": "Linus", "age": 28, "role": "dev", "active": true,
      "email": null, "skills": ["c", "shell"] },
    { "name": "Grace", "age": 45, "role": "dev", "active": false,
      "skills": ["cobol"] },
    { "name": "Alan", "age": 41, "role": "qa", "active": true,
      "email": "[email protected]", "skills": [] }
  ]
}

Query

.members[] | select((.role == "dev" or .role == "qa") and .active) | .name

(.role == "dev" or .role == "qa") Parentheses group the or, which is true when either side is: the role is dev or qa.
and Both sides must be true.
.active A boolean field works as a condition on its own: the member is active.

Result

"Linus"
"Alan"

Try it in the playground

Example 2Members who are not active

Document

{
  "team": "Platform",
  "office": { "city": "Berlin", "floor": 3 },
  "members": [
    { "name": "Ada", "age": 36, "role": "lead", "active": true,
      "email": "[email protected]", "skills": ["rust", "sql"] },
    { "name": "Linus", "age": 28, "role": "dev", "active": true,
      "email": null, "skills": ["c", "shell"] },
    { "name": "Grace", "age": 45, "role": "dev", "active": false,
      "skills": ["cobol"] },
    { "name": "Alan", "age": 41, "role": "qa", "active": true,
      "email": "[email protected]", "skills": [] }
  ]
}

Query

.members[] | select(.active | not) | .name

select( Keep only what the condition accepts…
.active | not …and not flips a boolean. It is a filter, so it is piped: .active | not.

Result

"Grace"

Try it in the playground

Good to know

Only false and null count as false; everything else — even 0 and "" — is true.