rcl query¶

rcl query [-f | --format <format>] [--] [<file>] <expr> [--output <outfile>]

Shorthands:

rcl q   (uses default --format=rcl)
rcl jq  (sets --format=json)

Description¶

Evaluate an expression against an input.

• Read an RCL expression from <file>. When <file> is -, read from stdin. When no file is specified, the input defaults to stdin.
• Evaluate the expression <expr>, in a context where the variable input is bound to the result of the input document.

This can be used to peek into a sub-element of a document that evaluates to a large expression, but it can also be used for ad-hoc data querying, as an alternative to jq. For example:

echo '[12, 42, 33]' | rcl q '[for x in input: f"Double {x} is {x * 2}."]'
["Double 12 is 24.","Double 42 is 84.","Double 33 is 66."]

Options¶

rcl query accepts the same options as rcl evaluate.