How to sort JSON output from AWS CLI using JMESPath

Question

I try to sort this output from AWS CLI by ImageId, and I executed command below.

aws ec2 describe-images --profile xxxxxxxxxx \ --filter Name=tag:Name,Values=Backup*some-string* \ --query "Images[*].[Tags[?Key=='Name'].Value[]|[0],ImageId]"

output is:

[
    [
        "Backup-20191215T174530Z-utc-some-string",
        "ami-004"
    ],
    [
        "Backup-20191219T174631Z-utc-some-string",
        "ami-002"
    ],
    [
        "Backup-20191208T174534Z-utc-some-string",
        "ami-001"
    ],
    [
        "Backup-20191222T174530Z-utc-some-string",
        "ami-003"
    ],
    [
        "Backup-20191221T174530Z-utc-some-string",
        "ami-005"
    ]
]

I found sort_by functions of JMESPath could be a solution but that is too hard to understand.

Rohan Kishibe · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-06T17:02:59.853

4

aws ec2 describe-images --profile xxxxxxxxxx \
--filter "Name=tag:Name,Values=Backup*some-string*" \
--query "sort_by(Images[*].[Tags[?Key=='Name'].Value[]|[0],ImageId], &[0])"

or

aws ec2 describe-images --profile xxxxxxxxxx \
--filter "Name=tag:Name,Values=Backup*some-string*" \
--query "Images[*].[Tags[?Key=='Name'].Value[]|[0],ImageId] | sort_by(@, &[0])"

is working fine for me. & (expression type operator) is needed.

edited Feb 06 '23 at 17:02

answered Dec 24 '19 at 09:27

Rohan Kishibe

617
2
10
25

Just FYI, you are missing a closing parens in the first example/answer. – Greg Dec 06 '22 at 21:29

Arun Kamalanathan · Answer 2 · 2019-12-24T05:37:09.987

1

The idea is, In my solution below, I am sorting the output first by the ImageId and then applying the projections.

aws ec2 describe-images --filter Name=tag:Environment,Values=Staging --output json --query "(sort_by(Images[], &ImageId))[*].[ImageId, Tags[?Key=='Environment'].Value | [0]]"

edited Dec 24 '19 at 05:37

answered Dec 23 '19 at 14:49

Arun Kamalanathan

8,107
4
23
39

I tried your code, but it returns an error `In function sort_by(), invalid type for value: ['Backup-20191215T174530Z-xxxxxxxxxx', 'ami-abcdefghijklmn'], expected one of: ['string', 'number'], received: "null"` – Rohan Kishibe Dec 24 '19 at 02:45
additional `[]` also returns the same type of error. And what I want to achieve is just sort the output by the name of the tag value. – Rohan Kishibe Dec 24 '19 at 03:06
i am in a road trip, just came up with this, have a try, otherwise i will try something soon – Arun Kamalanathan Dec 24 '19 at 04:26
got it working, apply your tag names and see if it working. – Arun Kamalanathan Dec 24 '19 at 05:39
I found a solution for this, so added my answer. Thank you for helping me. – Rohan Kishibe Dec 24 '19 at 09:27

How to sort JSON output from AWS CLI using JMESPath

2 Answers2