Take this sample from https://json.org/example.html
cat foo.json
{ "glossary": { "GlossDiv": { "GlossList": { "GlossEntry": { "Abbrev": "ISO 8879:1986", "Acronym": "SGML", "GlossDef": { "GlossSeeAlso": [ "GML", "XML" ], "para": "A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook." }, "GlossSee": "markup", "GlossTerm": "Standard Generalized Markup Language", "ID": "SGML", "SortAs": "SGML" } }, "title": "S" }, "title": "example glossary" } } Instead of using JQ or higher-level programming language to recurse and nullify values, you can quickly do the following: