PHPackages                             mtdowling/jmespath.php - PHPackages - PHPackages  [Skip to content](#main-content)[PHPackages](/)[Directory](/)[Categories](/categories)[Trending](/trending)[Leaderboard](/leaderboard)[Changelog](/changelog)[Analyze](/analyze)[Collections](/collections)[Log in](/login)[Sign up](/register)

1. [Directory](/)
2. /
3. [Parsing &amp; Serialization](/categories/parsing)
4. /
5. mtdowling/jmespath.php

ActiveLibrary[Parsing &amp; Serialization](/categories/parsing)

mtdowling/jmespath.php
======================

Declaratively specify how to extract elements from a JSON document

2.8.0(1y ago)2.0k472.8M—10%56[11 issues](https://github.com/jmespath/jmespath.php/issues)[5 PRs](https://github.com/jmespath/jmespath.php/pulls)20MITPHPPHP ^7.2.5 || ^8.0CI failing

Since Feb 19Pushed 1y ago20 watchersCompare

[ Source](https://github.com/jmespath/jmespath.php)[ Packagist](https://packagist.org/packages/mtdowling/jmespath.php)[ RSS](/packages/mtdowling-jmespathphp/feed)WikiDiscussions master Synced 1mo ago

READMEChangelog (10)Dependencies (3)Versions (21)Used By (20)

jmespath.php
============

[](#jmespathphp)

JMESPath (pronounced "jaymz path") allows you to declaratively specify how to extract elements from a JSON document. *jmespath.php* allows you to use JMESPath in PHP applications with PHP data structures. It requires PHP 7.2.5 or greater and can be installed through [Composer](http://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md)using the `mtdowling/jmespath.php` package.

```
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$expression = 'foo.*.baz';

$data = [
    'foo' => [
        'bar' => ['baz' => 1],
        'bam' => ['baz' => 2],
        'boo' => ['baz' => 3]
    ]
];

JmesPath\search($expression, $data);
// Returns: [1, 2, 3]
```

- [JMESPath Tutorial](http://jmespath.org/tutorial.html)
- [JMESPath Grammar](http://jmespath.org/specification.html#grammar)
- [JMESPath Python library](https://github.com/jmespath/jmespath.py)

PHP Usage
---------

[](#php-usage)

The `JmesPath\search` function can be used in most cases when using the library. This function utilizes a JMESPath runtime based on your environment. The runtime utilized can be configured using environment variables and may at some point in the future automatically utilize a C extension if available.

```
$result = JmesPath\search($expression, $data);

// or, if you require PSR-4 compliance.
$result = JmesPath\Env::search($expression, $data);
```

### Runtimes

[](#runtimes)

jmespath.php utilizes *runtimes*. There are currently two runtimes: AstRuntime and CompilerRuntime.

AstRuntime is utilized by `JmesPath\search()` and `JmesPath\Env::search()`by default.

#### AstRuntime

[](#astruntime)

The AstRuntime will parse an expression, cache the resulting AST in memory, and interpret the AST using an external tree visitor. AstRuntime provides a good general approach for interpreting JMESPath expressions that have a low to moderate level of reuse.

```
$runtime = new JmesPath\AstRuntime();
$runtime('foo.bar', ['foo' => ['bar' => 'baz']]);
// > 'baz'
```

#### CompilerRuntime

[](#compilerruntime)

`JmesPath\CompilerRuntime` provides the most performance for applications that have a moderate to high level of reuse of JMESPath expressions. The CompilerRuntime will walk a JMESPath AST and emit PHP source code, resulting in anywhere from 7x to 60x speed improvements.

Compiling JMESPath expressions to source code is a slower process than just walking and interpreting a JMESPath AST (via the AstRuntime). However, running the compiled JMESPath code results in much better performance than walking an AST. This essentially means that there is a warm-up period when using the `CompilerRuntime`, but after the warm-up period, it will provide much better performance.

Use the CompilerRuntime if you know that you will be executing JMESPath expressions more than once or if you can pre-compile JMESPath expressions before executing them (for example, server-side applications).

```
// Note: The cache directory argument is optional.
$runtime = new JmesPath\CompilerRuntime('/path/to/compile/folder');
$runtime('foo.bar', ['foo' => ['bar' => 'baz']]);
// > 'baz'
```

##### Environment Variables

[](#environment-variables)

You can utilize the CompilerRuntime in `JmesPath\search()` by setting the `JP_PHP_COMPILE` environment variable to "on" or to a directory on disk used to store cached expressions.

Testing
-------

[](#testing)

A comprehensive list of test cases can be found at . These compliance tests are utilized by jmespath.php to ensure consistency with other implementations, and can serve as examples of the language.

jmespath.php is tested using PHPUnit. In order to run the tests, you need to first install the dependencies using Composer as described in the *Installation*section. Next you just need to run the tests via make:

```
make test
```

You can run a suite of performance tests as well:

```
make perf
```

###  Health Score

63

—

FairBetter than 99% of packages

Maintenance34

Infrequent updates — may be unmaintained

Popularity81

Widely adopted with strong download metrics

Community47

Growing community involvement

Maturity77

Established project with proven stability

 Bus Factor1

Top contributor holds 90.8% of commits — single point of failure

How is this calculated?**Maintenance (25%)** — Last commit recency, latest release date, and issue-to-star ratio. Uses a 2-year decay window.

**Popularity (30%)** — Total and monthly downloads, GitHub stars, and forks. Logarithmic scaling prevents top-heavy scores.

**Community (15%)** — Contributors, dependents, forks, watchers, and maintainers. Measures real ecosystem engagement.

**Maturity (30%)** — Project age, version count, PHP version support, and release stability.

###  Release Activity

Cadence

Every ~202 days

Recently: every ~427 days

Total

20

Last Release

621d ago

Major Versions

0.4.0 → 1.0.02014-06-19

1.1.x-dev → 2.0.02015-01-12

PHP version history (4 changes)0.1.0PHP &gt;=5.3.0

0.2.0PHP &gt;=5.4.0

2.6.0PHP ^5.4 || ^7.0 || ^8.0

2.7.0PHP ^7.2.5 || ^8.0

### Community

Maintainers

![](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/190930?v=4)[Michael Dowling](/maintainers/mtdowling)[@mtdowling](https://github.com/mtdowling)

![](https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/184fbc398ff1b83855ab8289cd8ce20225d0158c66284b458d2d811546606938?d=identicon)[jeremeamia](/maintainers/jeremeamia)

---

Top Contributors

[![mtdowling](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/190930?v=4)](https://github.com/mtdowling "mtdowling (436 commits)")[![GrahamCampbell](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2829600?v=4)](https://github.com/GrahamCampbell "GrahamCampbell (30 commits)")[![nickfan](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/100613?v=4)](https://github.com/nickfan "nickfan (2 commits)")[![jeremeamia](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/107867?v=4)](https://github.com/jeremeamia "jeremeamia (1 commits)")[![Jubeki](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/15707543?v=4)](https://github.com/Jubeki "Jubeki (1 commits)")[![kawaz](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/156236?v=4)](https://github.com/kawaz "kawaz (1 commits)")[![mfn](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/87493?v=4)](https://github.com/mfn "mfn (1 commits)")[![morozov](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/59683?v=4)](https://github.com/morozov "morozov (1 commits)")[![mrtnmtth](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1316539?v=4)](https://github.com/mrtnmtth "mrtnmtth (1 commits)")[![pborreli](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/77759?v=4)](https://github.com/pborreli "pborreli (1 commits)")[![siwinski](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1034024?v=4)](https://github.com/siwinski "siwinski (1 commits)")[![Chris53897](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/7104259?v=4)](https://github.com/Chris53897 "Chris53897 (1 commits)")[![whatthejeff](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/306525?v=4)](https://github.com/whatthejeff "whatthejeff (1 commits)")[![flavioheleno](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/471860?v=4)](https://github.com/flavioheleno "flavioheleno (1 commits)")[![jamesls](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/368057?v=4)](https://github.com/jamesls "jamesls (1 commits)")

---

Tags

jsonjsonpath

###  Code Quality

TestsPHPUnit

### Embed Badge

![Health badge](/badges/mtdowling-jmespathphp/health.svg)

```
[![Health](https://phpackages.com/badges/mtdowling-jmespathphp/health.svg)](https://phpackages.com/packages/mtdowling-jmespathphp)
```

###  Alternatives

[justinrainbow/json-schema

A library to validate a json schema.

3.6k316.9M612](/packages/justinrainbow-json-schema)[jms/serializer

Library for (de-)serializing data of any complexity; supports XML, and JSON.

2.3k135.8M851](/packages/jms-serializer)[jms/serializer-bundle

Allows you to easily serialize, and deserialize data of any complexity

1.8k89.3M627](/packages/jms-serializer-bundle)[galbar/jsonpath

JSONPath implementation for querying and updating JSON objects

2136.4M78](/packages/galbar-jsonpath)[colinodell/json5

UTF-8 compatible JSON5 parser for PHP

30422.2M45](/packages/colinodell-json5)[clue/ndjson-react

Streaming newline-delimited JSON (NDJSON) parser and encoder for ReactPHP.

15467.7M16](/packages/clue-ndjson-react)

PHPackages © 2026

[Directory](/)[Categories](/categories)[Trending](/trending)[Changelog](/changelog)[Analyze](/analyze)
