Suberflous \ if try to escape } in value

[hikhvar]

Hello,

I want to encode some JSON as string value. Therefore I used the trick to escape both the leading { and the trailing } with an \ like this:

jo foo='\{"bla":"blub"\}'
{"foo":"{\"bla\":\"blub\"\\}"

 jo foo='\{"bla":"blub"\}' -p | jq .foo
"{\"bla\":\"blub\"\\}"

As you can see, jo adds two \\ for the trailing }

My expected result would have been:

 jo foo='\{"bla":"blub"\}' -p | jq .foo
"{\"bla\":\"blub\"}"

If only the leading { is escaped, jo detects the value as nested object:

jo foo='\{"bla":"blub"}' -p
{
   "foo": {
      "bla": "blub"
   }
}

Jo Version:

jo -v
jo 1.6

[jpmens]

You are not showing us exactly what you get (e.g the diagnosting warning):

$ jo foo='\{"bla":"blub"\}' -p
Argument `-p' is neither k=v nor k@v
{"foo":"{\"bla\":\"blub\"\\}"}

This is probably not a bug but simply an esacaping thing. I think you'll find this solves your task:

$ jo bla=blub > /tmp/f
$ jo  foo=@/tmp/f | jq .
{
  "foo": "{\"bla\":\"blub\"}"
}

[gromgit]

jo foo='\{"bla":"blub"\}'

jo can just as easily do that for you in a sane way, with nested invocations and (very VERY important) proper quoting of each value:

$ jo -p foo="$(jo bla=blub)"
{
   "foo": {
      "bla": "blub"
   }
}

$ jo -p foo="$(jo bar="$(jo baz="$(jo -a 42 78 hike)")" flurb=tens)"
{
   "foo": {
      "bar": {
         "baz": [
            42,
            78,
            "hike"
         ]
      },
      "flurb": "tens"
   }
}

[jpmens]

@gromgit quite right, but I'm understanding OP doesn't want the nested object but rather that foo contains the string {"bla":"blub"}.

[hikhvar]

You are not showing us exactly what you get (e.g the diagnosting warning):

That is not true, maybe my build (binary package from Archlinux) is broken, but I don't get any diagnostics warning here.

@gromgit as @jpmens said, I want to have the string instead of the nested object.

@jpmens I don't understand why this odd escaping behaviour isn't a bug? I double checked it with both zsh and bash, both of the time the escaping seems to get broken within jo.

[gromgit]

Sorry, I misunderstood. Still, assuming you want {"bla": "blub"} to be treated as a string, jo has allowed string coercions for a long time now:

$ jo -p -- -s foo='{"bla": "blub"}'
{
   "foo": "{\"bla\": \"blub\"}"
}

 jo -p -- -s foo="$(jo bla=blub)"
{
   "foo": "{\"bla\":\"blub\"}"
}

Note that the first example actually preserved the space after the colon, proving conclusively that the value was indeed treated as a string instead of being interpreted by jo.

[jpmens]

I invented jo, but @gromgit remains the person who knows it best. Thank you, Adrian.

[hikhvar]

ok, sorry, I tried with jo -s foo='{"bla": "blub"}' first, but only got the message

jo: invalid option -- 's'
[...help...]

Should have read the manual more in depth.

[TimDeve]

Sorry for the comment on a closed issue but I thought it might be helpful to people finding this issue.
A more streamline way is to use the shell "process substituion" or <():

jo foo=@<(jo bla=blu)