Recently, I’ve been interested in the DuckDB project (like a SQLite geared towards data applications). And one of the amazing features is that it has many data importers included without requiring extra dependencies. This means it can natively read and parse JSON as a database table, among many other formats.

I work extensively with JSON day to day, and I often reach for jq when exploring documents. I love jq, but I find it hard to use. The syntax is super powerful, but I have to study the docs anytime I want to do anything beyond just selecting fields.

Once I learned DuckDB could read JSON files directly into memory, I realized that I could use it for many of the things where I’m currently using jq. In contrast to the complicated and custom jq syntax, I’m very familiar with SQL and use it almost daily.

Inserting and updating data with a single query.