Jq: Key names can not include colons :

[TomOnTime]

jq can't search keynames that include colons. This is a big problem for hiera/puppet users since they often have keynames in the form of function::parameter

To reproduce:

$ cat x.json 
{
  "first": "value1",
  "key::name": "value2"
}
$ jq <x.json '.first'
"value1"
$ jq <x.json '.key::name'
error: syntax error, unexpected ':', expecting $end
.key::name
    ^
1 compile error
$ 

[ghost]

The .foo.bar syntax only accepts a limited set of characters. Try .["foo"]["bar"], or, in recent versions, ."foo"."bar". In your case, that would be .["key::name"]

[TomOnTime]

Ok. This works. Can you update the docs? I think a lot of Puppet users would appreciate it because they'll be looking for that too.

jq <x.json '.["key::name"]'

(this works in jq version 1.3)

[ghost]

It is mentioned pretty thoroughly on the manual.

.foo, .foo.bar

If the key contains special characters, you need to surround it with double quotes like this: ."foo$".

.[<string>], .[2], .[10:15]

You can also look up fields of an object using syntax like .["foo"] (.foo above is a shorthand version of this).

Contributions and improvements to the docs are welcome and heavily encouraged, but I'm not sure about what to change.

[nicowilliams]

Perhaps the tutorial and manual should both list the .["key"] or ."key"
syntax first, _then_ point out that .key is a handy shorter form, rather
than the inverse.

[ghost]

That sounds like a good idea.

[TomOnTime]

TBH, when I read that I didn't see the benefit of .["key"]. It just seemed like more typing for no purpose. Having an explicit example of a key that wouldn't work in the short form would make it more clear.

[TomOnTime]

See https://github.com/stedolan/jq/pull/745