Gron

gron Plugin

Make JSON greppable. Convert JSON to a grep-able format for easier searching and manipulation with standard Unix tools.

Commands

JSON Conversion

• gron json convert — Convert JSON to grep-able format

Utility

• gron _ _ — Passthrough to gron CLI

Usage Examples

• "Make this JSON grep-able"
• "Convert JSON to line-by-line format"
• "Search JSON with grep"
• "Convert back to JSON"

Installation

brew install gron

Or via Go:

go install github.com/tomnomnom/gron@latest

Examples

# Convert JSON to gron format
gron json convert data.json

# Convert from URL
gron json convert https://api.example.com/data.json

# Convert from stdin
cat data.json | gron json convert

# Convert back to JSON
gron json convert --ungron data.gron > output.json

# Stream mode for large files
gron json convert --stream large.json

# Disable color output
gron json convert --monochrome data.json

# Don't sort keys
gron json convert --no-sort data.json

# Pipe to grep
gron json convert data.json | grep email

# Pipe to sed
gron json convert data.json | sed 's/old/new/'

# Pipe to awk
gron json convert data.json | awk '/name/ {print}'

# Any gron command with passthrough
gron _ _ data.json
gron _ _ --ungron data.gron

Key Features

• Grep-friendly - Convert JSON to path=value format
• Unix integration - Works with grep, sed, awk, etc.
• Bidirectional - Convert back to JSON with --ungron
• Multiple sources - Files, URLs, or stdin
• Streaming - Handle large files efficiently
• Sorted output - Keys sorted by default
• Color support - Syntax highlighting
• No dependencies - Single binary
• Cross-platform - Linux, macOS, Windows
• URL support - Fetch JSON from URLs directly

Notes

• Default output is sorted by path
• Use --no-sort for faster processing
• Perfect for log analysis and data extraction
• Can be used in shell scripts
• Preserves data types when converting back