What is the proper way to parse when logs are json?

[mitcheaton1]

we tried

kubetail -j <pod> -n <namespace>

we get:

backend/0 is not defined at <top-level>, line 1:
. as $line | try (fromjson | <pod name> ) catch $line

Am i calling this correctly? Our logs for a particular service output as json

[johanhaleby]

-j is for applying a jq filter. Doesn't that work for you? I personally don't have access to any services that has structural json logging so I've never used this myself. It was a PR from the community that I've not used. If it's not working properly maybe you could help out and fix it?

[mitcheaton1]

Yeah, it doesn't work, and I have jq installed. i get the error listed above. I can try to see about fixing it. Thanks!

[towolf]

You need to specify a filter, so e.g., . is the simplest filter.

[julian-amplica]

--jq "." worked for me, thanks @towolf