How to extract a field from a JSON object in PostgreSQL®?

PostgreSQL® offers two types of data types to handle JSON data, JSON and JSONB, and provides several different ways to extract fields from a JSON document:

• the -> operator to extract the field as JSON
• the -> operator to extract an item from an array
• the ->> operator to extract the field as text
• the #> operator to extract the object at a specific path as JSON
• the #>> operator to extract the object at a specific path as text
• the [] operator to extract the object at a specific path as JSON
• the json_extract_path (jsonb_extract_path for JSONB columns) function to extract the object at a specific path as JSON

A quick overview of the methods is available in the video, scroll further for the written examples.

NOTE: To review the differences between JSON and JSONB check out the related article.

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

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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\nDPO AP 24022",
    "image": null,
    "pizzas": [
        {
            "pizzaName": "Salami",
            "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
        },
        {
            "pizzaName": "Margherita",
            "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
        }
    ]
}

[
    {
        "pizzaName": "Salami",
        "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
    },
    {
        "pizzaName": "Margherita",
        "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
    }
]

create table test(id serial, json_data jsonb);

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\nDPO AP 24022",
    "image": null,
    "pizzas": [
        {
            "pizzaName": "Salami",
            "additionalToppings": ["🥓", "🌶️"]
        },
        {
            "pizzaName": "Margherita",
            "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
        }
    ]
}');

Extract a JSON field using the -> operator

To extract a field 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 an item from a JSON array with the -> operator

The -> operator works with:

• text to identify a field name
• integers to identify an item within an array

Therefore the second pizza in the order can be extracted with

select 
    json_data -> 'pizzas' -> 1 as second_pizza
    from test;

In the above query

• json_data -> 'pizzas' extracts the pizzas field
• the additional -> 1 extracts the second pizza (index starts from 0)

Result

                             second_pizza
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 {"pizzaName": "Margherita", "additionalToppings": ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]}
(1 row)

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 a specific path using the @> operator

The -> operator allows only to extract “first level” fields, to extract in only one pass more nested items you can use the @> operator.

E.g. to extract the additionalToppings belonging to the second pizza in the order:

select 
    json_data #> 
       '{pizzas,1,additionalToppings}'  
        as additional_toppings_2nd_pizza
from test;

The {pizzas,1,additionalToppings} is the concatenation of:

• pizzas: the field name
• 1: the second item in the pizzas array (index starts from 0)
• additionalToppings: the field name within the pizzas

Results

 additional_toppings_2nd_pizza
-------------------------------
 ["🍌", "🌶️", "🍍"]
(1 row)

Extract a JSON field as a specific path using the [] operator (subscripting)

To get the second pizza name in the order you can use the [] operator

select 
    json_data['pizzas']['1']['pizzaName'] second_pizza_name
from test;

Result

 second_pizza_name
-------------------
 "Margherita"
(1 row)

Extract a JSON field as a specific path using the json_extract_path function

To get the second pizza name in the order you can use the json_extract_path (jsonb_extract_path since the column is defined as JSONB)

select 
    jsonb_extract_path(json_data, 'pizzas', '1', 'pizzaName') second_pizza_name
from test;

Result

 second_pizza_name
-------------------
 "Margherita"
(1 row)

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