Extract json values as array with jq in bash

Question

How to extract json's values as JSON array with jq?

For example for the below json:

{
   "a" : 1,
   "b" : 2
}

I would like to extract values as JSON array:

[ 1, 2 ]

How to do it with jq? I found a way to extract keys only in the docs:

echo $json | jq keys returns:

[
"a",
"b"
]

Answer 1

echo $json | jq '[.[]]'

output:

[
  1,
  2
]

Answer 2

One solution is to use to_entries then map to extract only the values:

$ echo '{
   "a" : 1,
   "b" : 2
}' | jq 'to_entries|map(.value)'
[
  1,
  2
]

Another solution, simpler and faster, is to use just map(.):

$ echo '{
   "a" : 1,
   "b" : 2
}' | jq 'map(.)'
[
  1,
  2
]