Selecting a subset of JSON properties and values using JSONPath

Question

Given a JSON like:

{
  "a":1,
  "b":2,
  "c":3,
  "d":4,
  "e":5
}

How can I select out b, d and e to get the following JSON?

{
  "b":2,
  "d":4,
  "e":5
}

I want a JSON object and NOT only 2, 4 and 5 values?

This is what I'm trying with and failing:

$.[b,d,e]

Answer 1

JSONPath is not suitable for what you are trying to achieve: JSONPath is designed to select values and not key-value pairs. What you want could be achieved with Jackson or any JSON parser for Java.

If you want to go for Jackson here's the code that will do the trick:

String json = "{\"a\":1,\"b\":2,\"c\":3,\"d\":4,\"e\":5}";

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JsonNode tree = mapper.readTree(json);

ObjectNode node = mapper.createObjectNode();
node.set("b", tree.get("b"));
node.set("d", tree.get("d"));
node.set("e", tree.get("e"));

String result = mapper.writerWithDefaultPrettyPrinter().writeValueAsString(node);

Answer 2

Elements must be in single quotes.

$.['b','d','e']

Works fine for JsonPath from com.jayway.jsonpath:json-path:2.4.0