With jq I constantly trip up on quoting issues and the query syntax. It takes me forever to write a jq query since I don't use it that often and end up forgetting its DSL.
With PowerShell, JSON can be imported as an object, which is much easier to work with since it uses the same syntax as any other object.
That said, Bash is much faster to start up than PowerShell is, so for low-latency applications like window manager keybindings, I have no choice but to use jq on Bash.
I honestly get annoyed how many platforms say for JSON "yeah, just use the native object querying syntax" while for XML they're all about XPath queries. I have to google how to XPath every time I use it.
PowerShell supports both XPath and native object syntax for reading XML.
Unfortunately, by default, writing XML isn't as straightforward. One has to use XmlDocument methods to construct an XML file. The 'Format-XML' cmdlet in the Pscx extension repository [1] does make it possible to use native object syntax to construct XML files, however.
> Unfortunately, by default, writing XML isn't as straightforward.
Mhm... It can be very simple - you can construct it as a string with @"...@". Add StringBuilder for some speed if there are truly dynamic XMLs with lots of concats. Its way faster then doing regular C# mumbo jumbo and you can test validity easily with [xml].
I generated tones of XML like that and its also very fast. Don't go by the book, rules are there for mediocre :)
