passing arguments to jq filter

you can do this:

    key="dev.projects.prj1"
    filter=".$key"
    cat config.json | jq $filter

You can use --argjson too when you make your json.

--arg a v       # set variable $a to value <v>;
--argjson a v   # set variable $a to JSON value <v>;

As asked in a comment above there's a way to pass multiple argumets. Maybe there's a more elegant way, but it works.

• If you are sure always all keys needed you can use this:

jq --arg key1 $k1 --arg key2 $k2 --arg key3 $k3 --arg key4 $k4 '.[$key1] | .[$key2] | .[$key3] | .[$key4] '

---

• If the key isn't always used you could do it like this:

jq --arg key $k ' if key != "" then .[$key] else . end'

---

• If key sometimes refers to an array:

jq --arg key $k ' if type == "array" then .[$key |tonumber] else .[$key] end'

of course you can combine these!

The jq program .dev.projects."$v" in your example will literally try to find a key named "$v". Try the following instead:

jq --arg v "$PRJNAME" '.dev.projects[$v]' config.json