How to extract a field from a JSON object in MySQL

- 2 minutes read - 421 words

MySQL® offers three ways to extract fields from a JSON object:

  • the -> operator to extract the field as JSON
  • the ->> operator to extract the field as text
  • the JSON_EXTRACT function

Both operators use the JSON Path Syntax

NOTE: more info is available in the MySQL JSON functions documentation page

The dataset

The dataset is the following:

{
    "id": 778,
    "shop": "Luigis Pizza",
    "name": "Edward Olson",
    "phoneNumbers":
        ["(935)503-3765x4154","(935)12345"],
    "address": "Unit 9398 Box 2056 DPO AP 24022",
    "image": null,
    "pizzas": [
        {
            "pizzaName": "Salami",
            "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
        },
        {
            "pizzaName": "Margherita",
            "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
        }
    ]
}
Check out the description of the fields The following examples use a pizza order dataset with an order having:
  • id: 778
  • shop: “Luigis Pizza”
  • name: “Edward Olson”
  • phoneNumbers:["(935)503-3765x4154","(935)12345"]
  • address: “Unit 9398 Box 2056 DPO AP 24022”
  • image: null
  • and two pizzas contained in the pizzas item:
[
    {
        "pizzaName": "Salami",
        "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
    },
    {
        "pizzaName": "Margherita",
        "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
    }
]
If you want to reproduce the examples, check how to recreate the dataset

It can be recreated with the following script:

create table test(id serial primary key, json_data json);

insert into test(json_data) values (
'{
    "id": 778,
    "shop": "Luigis Pizza",
    "name": "Edward Olson",
    "phoneNumbers":
        ["(935)503-3765x4154","(935)12345"],
    "address": "Unit 9398 Box 2056 DPO AP 24022",
    "image": null,
    "pizzas": [
        {
            "pizzaName": "Salami",
            "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
        },
        {
            "pizzaName": "Margherita",
            "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
        }
    ]
}');

Extract a JSON field using the -> operator

To extract a field value from a JSON document, you can use the -> operator. The id and name fields can be extracted with:

select 
    json_data -> '$.id' id,
    json_data -> '$.name' name
    from test;

Result

+------+----------------+
| id   | name           |
+------+----------------+
| 778  | "Edward Olson" |
+------+----------------+

Extract a JSON field as Text using the ->> operator

To extract a field from a JSON document as Text, you can use the -> operator. The id and name fields can be extracted with:

select 
    json_data ->> '$.id' id,
    json_data ->> '$.name' order_name
from test;

Result:

+------+--------------+
| id   | order_name   |
+------+--------------+
| 778  | Edward Olson |
+------+--------------+

Extract a JSON field as using the JSON_EXTRACT function

To extract a field from a JSON document, you can use the JSON_EXTRACT function. The id and name fields can be extracted with:

select 
    JSON_EXTRACT(json_data, '$.id') id,
    JSON_EXTRACT(json_data, '$.name') order_name
from test;

Result:

+------+----------------+
| id   | order_name     |
+------+----------------+
| 778  | "Edward Olson" |
+------+----------------+

Review all the JSON MySQL use-cases listed in the main page