jgze

A lightweight CLI tool to edit .json.gz files seamlessly. Edit gzipped JSON files directly in your favorite editor with automatic formatting and compression handling.

crates.io/crates/jgze

Features

• Edit .json.gz files directly using your preferred text editor
• Automatically formats compact JSON for better readability while editing
• Preserves the original format (compact/pretty) after saving
• Validates JSON syntax after editing
• Supports custom editor selection (defaults to vim)

Supported JSON Formats

The tool supports three JSON formats:

1. Compact JSON (single line)

{"name":"John","age":30,"city":"Tokyo"}

2. Pretty-printed JSON

{
  "name": "John",
  "age": 30,
  "city": "Tokyo"
}

3. JSON Lines (JSONL)

{"name":"John","age":30}
{"name":"Alice","age":25}
{"name":"Bob","age":35}

For better readability, all formats are automatically converted to pretty-printed format when opened in the editor. After saving, the file is converted back to its original format before compression.

For example, if you open a compact JSON file:

1. Original: {"name":"John","age":30,"city":"Tokyo"}
2. While editing:

{
"name": "John",
"age": 30,
"city": "Tokyo"
}

Suppose you edited this as follows:

{
"name": "John",
"age": 30
}

3. After saving: {"name":"John","age":30}

Usage

jgze [OPTIONS] <FILE>

Examples

# Edit with default editor (vim)
jgze input.json.gz

# Edit with a specific editor
jgze -e nano input.json.gz

# Show version information
jgze -v

# Show help message
jgze -h

The usage can be verified using the test data in the testdata directory.

Installation

Using cargo

install, update

cargo install jgze

uninstall

cargo uninstall jgze

From GitHub releases

install, update

• Linux (x86_64)

tar xz -C /usr/local/bin < <(curl -L https://github.com/teihenn/jgze/releases/latest/download/jgze-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz)

• macOS (x86_64)

tar xz -C /usr/local/bin < <(curl -L https://github.com/teihenn/jgze/releases/latest/download/jgze-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz)

• macOS (aarch64)

tar xz -C /usr/local/bin < <(curl -L https://github.com/teihenn/jgze/releases/latest/download/jgze-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz)

• Windows (x86_64)

1. Download the latest release
   • https://github.com/teihenn/jgze/releases/latest/download/jgze-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip
2. Extract the downloaded ZIP file
3. Create a directory and place jgze.exe (e.g., C:\Program Files\jgze)
4. Add the installation directory to the system PATH by running PowerShell as administrator

uninstall

ls -l /usr/local/bin/jgze
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/jgze

From source

install, update

git clone https://github.com/teihenn/jgze
cd jgze
cargo install --path .

uninstall

cargo uninstall jgze

How it works

1. Decompresses the input .json.gz file
2. Detects the JSON format and processes accordingly:
   • Compact JSON: Formats for better readability
   • JSONL: Formats each line individually
   • Pretty-printed JSON: Keeps as is
3. Opens the formatted JSON in the specified editor
4. After editing and saving:
   • Validates the JSON syntax
   • Converts based on original format:
     • For compact JSON: Compresses to single line
     • For JSONL: Compresses each object to single line
     • For pretty-printed JSON: Preserves formatting
   • Compresses with gzip and saves back to the original file