[SOLVED] jq: error: tostring/1 is not defined at <top-level>, line 1:

jq: error: tostring/1 is not defined at <top-level>, line 1:

I have a json array of objects in which I would like to create some string using some values. What I tried was:

cat a.json | jq 'map(.id+" "+tostring(.time))'

It gives the error:

jq: error: tostring/1 is not defined at <top-level>, line 1:

If I omit the tostring, then the problem is of course that time is not a string but a number.

Is there a way to do this? I could do a workaround using sed+tr, but it is inelegant.

EDIT: It was suggested to include some sample input. Behold!

[{
    "id": "399",
    "time": 1705655705
},
{
    "id": "409",
    "time": 1723587399
}]

Solution

There's only a tostring/0 function. Try (.time | tostring) instead.

jq 'map(.id + " " + (.time | tostring))' a.json

Alternatively, use string interpolation, which automatically converts to string:

jq 'map("\(.id) \(.time)")' a.json