Better JSON parsing #311

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2025-12-29T01:22:18+01:00

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:18 +01:00

Originally created by @lukas2511 on GitHub (Mar 18, 2018).

Originally assigned to: @lukas2511 on GitHub.

Currently dehydrated has very rudimentary JSON parsing which often results in issues with similarly-named values (like the recent #515 where dehydrated used the url string from a sub-dictionary instead of the root).

All JSON parsing should be replaced by something that actually "understands" the JSON structure instead of greping for values inside of it.

I had a look at JSON.sh which looks promising and I actually started stripping it down to only the required functionality and making it compatible with all the bash/zsh options set in dehydrated.

I also looked at some other "libraries" which used awk or sed for the parsing, but those seemed to be problematic on BSD and older GNU/Lunix systems.

So for now I'm planning on integrating JSON.sh, but if anybody knows about similar projects feel free to comment.

Originally created by @lukas2511 on GitHub (Mar 18, 2018). Originally assigned to: @lukas2511 on GitHub. Currently dehydrated has very rudimentary JSON parsing which often results in issues with similarly-named values (like the recent #515 where dehydrated used the `url` string from a sub-dictionary instead of the root). All JSON parsing should be replaced by something that actually "understands" the JSON structure instead of greping for values inside of it. I had a look at JSON.sh which looks promising and I actually started stripping it down to only the required functionality and making it compatible with all the bash/zsh options set in dehydrated. I also looked at some other "libraries" which used awk or sed for the parsing, but those seemed to be problematic on BSD and older GNU/Lunix systems. So for now I'm planning on integrating JSON.sh, but if anybody knows about similar projects feel free to comment.

adam added the bug label 2025-12-29 01:22:18 +01:00

adam closed this issue

2025-12-29 01:22:18 +01:00

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:19 +01:00

@bzed commented on GitHub (Apr 24, 2018):

https://github.com/stedolan/jq is available in most distributions these days. Not on older systems, though.

@bzed commented on GitHub (Apr 24, 2018): https://github.com/stedolan/jq is available in most distributions these days. Not on older systems, though.

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:20 +01:00

@vidensky commented on GitHub (Feb 5, 2020):

Step-ca authority does not work due to bad parsing of JSON.
see # 689

@vidensky commented on GitHub (Feb 5, 2020): Step-ca authority does not work due to bad parsing of JSON. see # 689

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:20 +01:00

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Feb 6, 2020):

I'm going to prioritize work on this. Will be the next thing after getting the code-testing system running (which for me is a hard requirement before I'm going to change anything around JSON parsing).

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Feb 6, 2020): I'm going to prioritize work on this. Will be the next thing after getting the code-testing system running (which for me is a hard requirement before I'm going to change anything around JSON parsing).

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:22 +01:00

@vidensky commented on GitHub (Feb 6, 2020):

This is good news.

Yesterday we looked at JSON.sh, https://github.com/step-/JSON.awk and https://github.com/stedolan/jq.

JQ is in my opinion the best choice. Even at the cost of dependence on another utility. JQ has been in the Debian repository since version 8. So 5 years ago. on other OS versions, we didn't look.

@vidensky commented on GitHub (Feb 6, 2020): This is good news. Yesterday we looked at JSON.sh, https://github.com/step-/JSON.awk and https://github.com/stedolan/jq. JQ is in my opinion the best choice. Even at the cost of dependence on another utility. JQ has been in the Debian repository since version 8. So 5 years ago. on other OS versions, we didn't look.

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:22 +01:00

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Feb 6, 2020):

@vidensky Yea, i'd really like to simply use jq, but since dehydrated is running on a lot of older systems where jq is not available that would be not-so-great for a big part of the userbase. I have a prototype of a JSON.sh integration... somewhere... (it's been a while ago...), I think that would be the best route to take.

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Feb 6, 2020): @vidensky Yea, i'd really like to simply use jq, but since dehydrated is running on a lot of older systems where jq is not available that would be not-so-great for a big part of the userbase. I have a prototype of a JSON.sh integration... somewhere... (it's been a while ago...), I think that would be the best route to take.

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:23 +01:00

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Jul 5, 2020):

There now is an experimental branch https://github.com/dehydrated-io/dehydrated/tree/jsonsh including JSON.sh as JSON parser.

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Jul 5, 2020): There now is an experimental branch https://github.com/dehydrated-io/dehydrated/tree/jsonsh including JSON.sh as JSON parser.

adam commented

2025-12-29 01:22:23 +01:00

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Sep 30, 2020):

Closing this issue as JSON.sh is now integrated into the main branch. Please open separate issues if you want to report a related problem.

@lukas2511 commented on GitHub (Sep 30, 2020): Closing this issue as JSON.sh is now integrated into the main branch. Please open separate issues if you want to report a related problem.

adam referenced this issue

2025-12-29 01:29:21 +01:00

[PR #311] [CLOSED] Fixing "$1 not set" for HANDLER var #797

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Reference: starred/dehydrated#311