Install Fx JSON Viewer and Processor on Ubuntu 24.04

Fx is a command line tool for processing, viewing, and formatting JSON. It provides an interactive way to explore JSON data, apply transformations, and filter content using JavaScript expressions. This tutorial explains how to install Fx JSON viewer and processor on Ubuntu 24.04.

Install Fx

Download the executable to the /usr/local/bin directory:

sudo wget -qO /usr/local/bin/fx https://github.com/antonmedv/fx/releases/latest/download/fx_linux_amd64

Set execute permission:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/fx

We can check Fx version as follows:

fx --version

Testing Fx

Suppose we have JSON data saved in the test.json file:

echo '{"status":"success","data":[{"name":"John","age":25},{"name":"James","age":29}]}' > test.json

The Fx tool offers various filters for processing JSON data. For instance, the dot (.) filter displays the JSON as-is but in a well-formatted manner.

fx '.' test.json

Output:

{
  "status": "success",
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "John",
      "age": 25
    },
    {
      "name": "James",
      "age": 29
    }
  ]
}

We can extract a specific field from a JSON object or an element from a JSON array as shown below:

fx '.data[1].name' test.json

Output:

James

Uninstall Fx

To remove Fx, simply delete the associated file:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/fx