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jq: to_entries

Passing JSON Objects to to_entries

If a JSON object is passed to to_entries, it creates an array of JSON object each of which has the two keys key and value. 
$ echo '{
  "txt":  "Hello world",
  "num":   42
}'                           | jq to_entries
[
  {
    "key": "txt",
    "value": "Hello world"
  },
  {
    "key": "num",
    "value": 42
  }
]
If the input is an array of objects, it should probably be passed to the .[] filter: 
$ echo '
[
  {
    "txt":  "Hello world",
    "num":   42
  },
  {
    "key-one":  "val 1",
    "key-two":  "val 2"
  }
]'                           | jq ' .[] | to_entries'
[
  {
    "key": "txt",
    "value": "Hello world"
  },
  {
    "key": "num",
    "value": 42
  }
]
[
  {
    "key": "key-one",
    "value": "val 1"
  },
  {
    "key": "key-two",
    "value": "val 2"
  }
]

Passing an array to to_entries

If an array is passed to to_entries, the values for the key correspond to the indices in the array: 
$ echo '[ "foo", "bar", "baz" ]' | jq to_entries
[
  {
    "key": 0,
    "value": "foo"
  },
  {
    "key": 1,
    "value": "bar"
  },
  {
    "key": 2,
    "value": "baz"
  }
]

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