If you want key and value, and based on How do i convert a json object to key=value format in JQ, you can do:

$ jq -r "to_entries|map(\"\(.key)=\(.value|tostring)\")|.[]" fileSALUTATION=Hello worldSOMETHING=bla bla bla Mr. Freeman

In a more general way, you can store the values into an array myarray[key] = value like this, just by providing jq to the while with the while ... do; ... done < <(command) syntax:

declare -A myarraywhile IFS="=" read -r key valuedo    myarray[$key]="$value"done < <(jq -r 'to_entries|map("(.key)=(.value)")|.[]' file)

And then you can loop through the values like this:

for key in "${!myarray[@]}"do    echo "$key = ${myarray[$key]}"done

For this given input, it returns:

SALUTATION = Hello worldSOMETHING = bla bla bla Mr. Freeman

Although this question is answered, I wasn't able to fully satiate myrequirements from the posted answer. Here is a little write up that'll help anybash-newcomers.

Foreknowledge

A basic associative array declaration

#!/bin/bashdeclare -A associativeArray=([key1]=val1 [key2]=val2)

You can also use quotes (', ") around the declaration, its keys, andvalues.

#!/bin/bashdeclare -A 'associativeArray=([key1]=val1 [key2]=val2)'

And you can delimit each [key]=value pair via space or newline.

#!/bin/bashdeclare -A associativeArray([key1]=value1  ['key2']=value2 [key3]='value3'  ['key4']='value2'               ["key5"]="value3"  ["key6"]='value4'  ['key7']="value5")

Depending on your quote variation, you may need to escape your string.

Using Indirection to access both key and value in an associative array

example () {  local -A associativeArray=([key1]=val1 [key2]=val2)  # print associative array  local key value  for key in "${!associativeArray[@]}"; do    value="${associativeArray["$key"]}"    printf '%s = %s' "$key" "$value"  done}

Running the example function

$ examplekey2 = val2key1 = val1

Knowing the aforementioned tidbits allows you to derive the following snippets:

The following examples will all have the result as the example above

String evaluation

#!/usr/bin/env bashexample () {  local arrayAsString='associativeArray=([key1]=val1 [key2]=val2)'  local -A "$arrayAsString"  # print associative array}

Piping your JSON into JQ

#!/usr/bin/env bash# Note: usage of single quotes instead of double quotes for the jq#       filter. The former is preferred to avoid issues with shell #       substitution of quoted strings.example () {  # Given the following JSON  local json='{ "key1": "val1", "key2": "val2" }'  # filter using `map` && `reduce`  local filter='to_entries | map("[\(.key)]=\(.value)") |    reduce .[] as $item ("associativeArray=("; . + ($item|@sh) + " ") + ")"'  # Declare and assign separately to avoid masking return values.  local arrayAsString;  # Note: no encompassing quotation (")  arrayAsString=$(cat "$json" | jq --raw-output "${filter}")  local -A "$arrayAsString"  # print associative array}

jq -n / --null-input option + --argfile && redirection

#!/usr/bin/env bashexample () {  # /path/to/file.json contains the same json as the first two examples  local filter filename='/path/to/file.json'  # including bash variable name in reduction  filter='to_entries | map("[\(.key | @sh)]=\(.value | @sh) ")    | "associativeArray=(" + add + ")"'  # using --argfile && --null-input  local -A "$(jq --raw-output --null-input --argfile file "$filename" \    "\$filename | ${filter}")"  # or for a more traceable declaration (using shellcheck or other) this  # variation moves the variable name outside of the string  # map definition && reduce replacement  filter='[to_entries[]|"["+(.key|@sh)+"]="+(.value|@sh)]|"("+join(" ")+")"'    # input redirection && --join-output  local -A associativeArray=$(jq --join-output "${filter}" < "${filename}")    # print associative array}

Reviewing previous answers

@Ján Lalinský

To load JSON object into a bash associative array efficiently(without using loops in bash), one can use tool 'jq', as follows.

# first, load the json text into a variable:json='{"SALUTATION": "Hello world", "SOMETHING": "bla bla bla Mr. Freeman"}'# then, prepare associative array, I use 'aa':unset aadeclare -A aa# use jq to produce text defining name:value pairs in the bash format# using @sh to properly escape the valuesaacontent=$(jq -r '. | to_entries | .[] | "[\"" + .key + "\"]=" + (.value | @sh)' <<< "$json")# string containing whole definition of aa in bashaadef="aa=($aacontent)"# load the definition (because values may contain LF characters, aadef must be in double quotes)eval "$aadef"# now we can access the values like this: echo "${aa[SOMETHING]}"

Warning: this uses eval, which is dangerous if the json input is from unknown source (may contain malicious shell commands that eval may execute).

This could be reduced to the following

example () {  local json='{ "key1": "val1", "key2": "val2" }'  local -A associativeArray="($(jq -r '. | to_entries | .[] |    "[\"" + .key + "\"]=" + (.value | @sh)' <<< "$json"))"  # print associative array}

@fedorqui

If you want key and value, and based on How do i convert a json object to key=value format in JQ, you can do:

$ jq -r "to_entries|map(\"\(.key)=\(.value|tostring)\")|.[]" fileSALUTATION=Hello worldSOMETHING=bla bla bla Mr. Freeman

In a more general way, you can store the values into an array myarray[key] = value like this, just by providing jq to the while with the while ... do; ... done < <(command) syntax:

declare -A myarraywhile IFS="=" read -r key valuedo    myarray[$key]="$value"done < <(jq -r "to_entries|map(\"\(.key)=\(.value)\")|.[]" file)

And then you can loop through the values like this:

for key in "${!myarray[@]}"do    echo "$key = ${myarray[$key]}"done

For this given input, it returns:

SALUTATION = Hello worldSOMETHING = bla bla bla Mr. Freeman

The main difference between this solution and my own is looping through thearray in bash or in jq.

Each solution is valid and depending on your use case, one may be more usefulthen the other.

_{Context: This answer was written to be responsive to a question title which no longer exists.}.

The OP's question actually describes objects, vs arrays.

To be sure that we help other people coming in who are actually looking for help with JSON arrays, though, it's worth covering them explicitly.

For the safe-ish case where strings can't contain newlines (and when bash 4.0 or newer is in use), this works:

str='["Hello world", "bla bla bla Mr. Freeman"]'readarray -t array <<<"$(jq -r '.[]' <<<"$str")"

To support older versions of bash, and strings with newlines, we get a bit fancier, using a NUL-delimited stream to read from jq:

str='["Hello world", "bla bla bla Mr. Freeman", "this is\ntwo lines"]'array=( )while IFS= read -r -d '' line; do  array+=( "$line" )done < <(jq -j '.[] | (. + "\u0000")')