How to format a JSON string as a table using jq?

Question

Just started out with Bash scripting and stumbled upon jq to work with JSON.

I need to transform a JSON string like below to a table for output in the terminal.

Answer 1

Using the @tsv filter has much to recommend it, mainly because it handles numerous "edge cases" in a standard way:

.[] | [.id, .name] | @tsv

Adding the headers can be done like so:

jq -r '["ID","NAME"], ["--","------"], (.[] | [.id, .name]) | @tsv'

The result:

ID  NAME
--  ------
12  George
18  Jack
19  Joe

length*"-"

To automate the production of the line of dashes:

jq -r '(["ID","NAME"] | (., map(length*"-"))), (.[] | [.id, .name]) | @tsv'