fc-json - print the output of `fc-cat` as JSON

fc-json

#!/bin/sh
##
##  fc-json - print output of 'fc-cat' as valid JSON
##
##  Usage:
##    $ fc-json | jq -SC .
##
##  Author:   Kevin Ernst <ernstki -at- mail.uc.edu>
##  Date:     2 September 2023
##  License:  MIT
##  Source:   https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ernstki/d3094c51e92383ff5a607c61f50019c7
##  Bugs:     No reason to even call a shell for this. AWK can read from pipes.
##

fc-cat | awk '
BEGIN {
    FS = "[:\"]"
}
{
    for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) {
        if ($i ~ /=/) {
            split($i, a, "=")
            A[a[1]] = a[2]
        }
        if ("fullname" in A) {
            for (k in A) {
                B[A["fullname"]][k] = A[k]
            }
        }
    }
}
END {
    print "["
    c = 0
    for (fn in B) {
        printf "  {\n"
        cc = 0
        for (k in B[fn]) { 
            v = B[fn][k]
            if (v == "True")
                printf "    \"%s\": true", k
            else if (v == "False")
                printf "    \"%s\": false", k
            else if (v ~ /^[0-9][.0-9]*$/)
                printf "    \"%s\": %s", k, v
            else if (k ~ /(lang|style|charset)/) {
                printf "    \"%s\": [", k
                split(v, a, k=="charset" ? " " : "[,|]")
                for (i=1; i<length(a); i++) {
                    printf "\"%s\", ", a[i]
                }
                printf "\"%s\"", a[length(a)]
                printf "]"
            }
            else
                printf "    \"%s\": \"%s\"", k, v
            printf ++cc < length(B[fn]) ? ",\n" : "\n"
        }
        printf "  }" (++c < length(B) ? ",\n" : "\n")
    }
    print "]"
}'
# vim: ft=awk

fc-json.md

Renders the output of fc-cat as valid JSON. The fc-cat binary is likely already on your system, as part of the fontconfig package.

Maybe there are other/better tools that already do this, but I did it for the challenge. In particular, figuring out how to create valid JSON, since trailing commas aren't allowed.

Installation

GIST='https://gist.githubusercontent.com/ernstki/d3094c51e92383ff5a607c61f50019c7/raw/fc-json'
mkdir -p ~/bin
(curl $GIST || wget -O- $GIST) > ~/bin/fc-json 
chmod a+x ~/bin/fc-json

# make sure it works (if not, try logging out and back in)
fc-json | head

Most modern Unices will add ~/bin to your search path on login (if it exists), but if not, assuming the Bash shell:

dotprofile=~/.$([[ -f ~/.bash_profile ]] && echo bash_)profile
echo '
# add ~/bin/to my search path
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"' >> $dotprofile

Example usage

fc-json | jq -SC . | less -R

# list all fonts which do not include `en` language
fc-json | jq -r '.[] | select(.lang?|index("en")|not) | .fullname'

See also

• Fontconfig Developers Reference, heading "FONT PROPERTIES" - freedesktop.org
• ISO 639.2 "Codes for the Representation of Names of Languages" - loc.gov
  • can convert to JSON, CSV, or tab-delimited with this trick

    curl -sS https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php \
      | pup 'table tbody tr td table tr json{}' \
      | jq -r 'map(.children | map(.text))[] | @tsv'

License

MIT.