merge multiple lists with jq into single list

Question

I have a aws cli bash loop generating multiple json lists, containing dictionaries. I can't get jq to merge the lists into one large list with all the dictionaries.

e.g.

[  { "key1": "value1", "key2": "value2" },
   { "key1": "value3", "key2": "value4" }
]
[  { "key1": "value5", "key2": "value6" }
]
[  { "key1": "value7" }
]

this gets piped to jq and i would like it to be merged to

[ { "key1": "value1", "key2": "value2" },
  { "key1": "value3", "key2": "value4" },
  { "key1": "value5", "key2": "value6" },
  { "key1": "value7" }
]

Answer 1

Assuming you have jq 1.5, the solution posted here:

JQ How to merge multiple objects into one

provides the basic technique of using jq -n with the inputs operator.

cat FILE | jq -n '[inputs|.[]]'

does the trick. [inputs] glues the multiple results into a single list and the '.[]' strips the extra level of list that was added.

Answer 2

i hacked a fix using awk, there must me a way to do it with jq.

| awk 'NR==1{print}NR>1{sub(/^]/,"");sub(/^\[/,",");print}END{print "]"}' \

What it does,

1. skip first line "[" (leave it in place)
2. remove all "^]" at start of lines
3. replace "[" at start of line with "," new list starting
4. at the end close it all with "]"