How to simplify aws DynamoDB query JSON output from the command line?

Another way to achieve the post's goal would be to use a node.js extension like node-dynamodb or dynamodb-marshaler and build a node command line tool.

Interesting tutorial to build a node.js command line application with commander package: Creating Your First Node.js Command-line Application

---

Here's a quick and dirty oneliner that reads one record from stdin and prints it in simplified form:

node -e 'console.log(JSON.stringify(require("aws-sdk").DynamoDB.Converter.unmarshall(JSON.parse(require("fs").readFileSync(0, "utf-8")))))'

You can decode the values recursively with a well crafted function. It looks like the key names correspond to a type:

S -> string
N -> number
M -> map

Handle each of the cases you want to decode if possible, otherwise filter it out. You can make use of the various type filters and the alternative operator to do so.

$ cat input.json
{
  "Count": 1,
  "Items": [
    {
      "Id": { "S": "app1" },
      "Parameters": {
        "M": {
          "nfs#IP": { "S": "192.17.0.13" },
          "maxCount": { "N": "1" },
          "nfs#defaultPath": { "S": "/mnt/ebs/" }
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "ScannedCount": 1,
  "ConsumedCapacity": null
}

$ cat ~/.jq
def decode_ddb:
    def _sprop($key): select(keys == [$key])[$key];                 # single property objects only
       ((objects | { value: _sprop("S") })                          # string (from string)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("B") })                           # blob (from string)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("N") | tonumber })                # number (from string)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("BOOL") })                        # boolean (from boolean)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("M") | map_values(decode_ddb) })  # map (from object)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("L") | map(decode_ddb) })         # list (from encoded array)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("SS") })                          # string set (from string array)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("NS") | map(tonumber) })          # number set (from string array)
    // (objects | { value: _sprop("BS") })                          # blob set (from string array)
    // (objects | { value: map_values(decode_ddb) })                # all other non-conforming objects
    // (arrays | { value: map(decode_ddb) })                        # all other non-conforming arrays
    // { value: . }).value                                          # everything else
    ;

$ jq 'decode_ddb' input.json
{
  "Count": 1,
  "Items": [
    {
      "Id": "app1",
      "Parameters": {
        "nfs#IP": "192.17.0.13",
        "maxCount": 1,
        "nfs#defaultPath": "/mnt/ebs/"
      }
    }
  ],
  "ScannedCount": 1,
  "ConsumedCapacity": null
}