# Json\_query and hyphens issue **URL:** \ **Category:** Get Help\ **Tags:** templating\ **Created:** [July 5, 2025, 11:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745 "2025-07-05T23:03:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RRohi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f19dbf/32.png) [@RRohi](https://forum.ansible.com/u/RRohi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 11:03pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/1 "2025-07-05T23:03:12Z")
Hello I’ve trying to get it working for hours now and no luck. I’m querying Proxmox LXC network info from the API and the structure is: ```json json data ip-addresses lo: ip-address eth0: ip-address ``` The task looks like this: ```yml - name: Get LXC IP address ansible.builtin.debug: var: item loop: '{{ lxclist.json | community.general.json_query("data[?name==`eth0`].ip-addresses") }}' tags: apitest ``` _NOTE: If I remove the `.ip-addresses` part, it works, I get the whole eth0 network info, but I want to get the IP address._ This generates this kind of error: `JMESPathError in json_query filter plugin:\nBad jmespath expression: Unknown token '-'`. There’s an issue [here](https://github.com/jmespath/jmespath.py/issues/109) where someone has the same issue and they’re saying that’s how it should work and you should use quotes to make it work, but it won’t. Here are the combinations I have tried: ```yml '{{ lxclist.json | community.general.json_query("data[?name==`eth0`].\"ip-addresses\"") }}' ``` Error: `template error while templating string: expected token ',', got 'ip'. String: {{ lxclist.json | community.general.json_query(\"data[?name==`eth0`].\\\\\"ip-addresses\\\\\"\"` ```yml '{{ lxclist.json | community.general.json_query("data[?name==`eth0`].""ip-addresses""") }}' ``` Error: `JMESPathError in json_query filter plugin:\nBad jmespath expression: Unknown token '-'` ```yml "{{ lxclist.json | community.general.json_query('data[?name==`eth0`].ip-addresses') }}" ``` Error: `JMESPathError in json_query filter plugin:\nBad jmespath expression: Unknown token '-'` ```yml "{{ lxclist.json | community.general.json_query('data[?name==`eth0`].`ip-addresses`') }}" ``` Error: `JMESPathError in json_query filter plugin:\nExpecting: ['quoted_identifier', 'unquoted_identifier', 'lbracket', 'lbrace'], got: literal: Parse error at column 20, token \"ip-addresses\" (LITERAL)` ---
**Author:** ![RRohi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f19dbf/32.png) [@RRohi](https://forum.ansible.com/u/RRohi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 12:15am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/2 "2025-07-06T00:15:36Z")
omg… half a day of trial and error and this turned out to be the winning solution: To make it easier, I created a separate task that disables IPv6 on the remote host. ```yml - name: Get LXC IP address. ansible.builtin.debug: msg: "{{ lxclist.json | community.general.json_query(query) }}" register: ipaddress tags: apitest vars: query: 'data[?name != `lo`]."ip-addresses"[*]."ip-address"' ``` ---
**Author:** ![vbotka](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/vbotka/32/359_2.png) [@vbotka](https://forum.ansible.com/u/vbotka)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 9:04am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/3 "2025-07-06T09:04:08Z")
This can be simplified ```yaml - debug: var: result vars: _query: '*.eth0' result: "{{ lxclist.json.data | json_query(_query) }}" ``` Note: `query` is a reserved name. ---
**Author:** ![RRohi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f19dbf/32.png) [@RRohi](https://forum.ansible.com/u/RRohi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 11:11am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/4 "2025-07-06T11:11:06Z")
That doesn’t return anything, unfortunately. Doesn’t error, the value is null. The whole JSON block from the previous task with a register named `lxclist`. I’m trying to get the `ip-address` of the network interface where the name isn’t `lo`. ```json "lxclist": { "cache_control": "max-age=0", "changed": false, "connection": "close", "content_length": "384", "content_type": "application/json;charset=UTF-8", "cookies": {}, "cookies_string": "", "date": "Sun, 06 Jul 2025 10:49:24 GMT", "elapsed": 0, "expires": "Sun, 06 Jul 2025 10:49:24 GMT", "failed": false, "json": { "data": [ { "hardware-address": "00:00:00:00:00:00", "hwaddr": "00:00:00:00:00:00", "inet": "127.0.0.1/8", "ip-addresses": [ { "ip-address": "127.0.0.1", "ip-address-type": "inet", "prefix": "8" } ], "name": "lo" }, { "hardware-address": "00:24:00:07:a9:00", "hwaddr": "00:24:00:07:a9:00", "inet": "192.168.2.11/26", "ip-addresses": [ { "ip-address": "192.168.2.11", "ip-address-type": "inet", "prefix": "26" } ], "name": "eth0" } ] }, "msg": "OK (384 bytes)", "pragma": "no-cache", "redirected": false, "server": "pve-api-daemon/3.0", "status": 200, "url": "https://pmxhost.domain.local:8006/api2/json/nodes/pmxhost/lxc/106/interfaces" } ``` ---
**Author:** ![vbotka](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/vbotka/32/359_2.png) [@vbotka](https://forum.ansible.com/u/vbotka)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 12:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/5 "2025-07-06T12:40:33Z")
Then, you don’t need the filter `json_query`. For example, ```yaml - # get the ip-address of the network interface where the name isn’t lo debug: var: result vars: result: "{{ lxclist.json.data | rejectattr('name', 'eq', 'lo') | map(attribute='ip-addresses') | flatten | map(attribute='ip-address') }}" ``` gives ```yaml result: - 192.168.2.11 ``` ---
**Author:** ![vbotka](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/vbotka/32/359_2.png) [@vbotka](https://forum.ansible.com/u/vbotka)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2025, 12:51pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/6 "2025-07-06T12:51:01Z")
As a side note, you might want to create a dictionary first ```yaml - debug: var: ip_addresses vars: _query: '[].[name, "ip-addresses"[]."ip-address"]' ip_addresses: "{{ dict(lxclist.json.data | json_query(_query)) }}" ``` gives ```yaml ip_addresses: eth0: - 192.168.2.11 lo: - 127.0.0.1 ``` Then, the searching is much easier. ---
**Author:** ![RRohi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f19dbf/32.png) [@RRohi](https://forum.ansible.com/u/RRohi)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2025, 4:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/7 "2025-07-07T16:24:16Z")
```yml - # get the ip-address of the network interface where the name isn’t lo debug: var: result vars: result: "{{ lxclist.json.data | rejectattr('name', 'eq', 'lo') | map(attribute='ip-addresses') | flatten | map(attribute='ip-address') }} ``` Thanks, I like that one because there’s no json\_query filter. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 4:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/json-query-and-hyphens-issue/43745/8 "2025-08-06T16:24:54Z")
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