jq/Q/What is a "floor merge" in the context of jq?

• What is a "floor merge" in the context of jq?

  • AI Answer

    • Short answer: "floor merge" does not appear in the official jq manual or widely-used community sources as of June 2026; it may be an informal or community-coined term.
    • Answer/Official from jq 1.8 Manual — no entry for "floor merge" exists in the manual.
    • The manual documents three relevant strategies for combining objects:
      • Shallow merge (+): inserts all key-value pairs from both objects into one; the right-hand value wins on conflicting keys.
      • Recursive (deep) merge (*): when both objects share a key whose values are also objects, those nested objects are merged recursively rather than replaced.
        • Example: {"k": {"a": 1, "b": 2}} * {"k": {"a": 0, "c": 3}} → {"k": {"a": 0, "b": 2, "c": 3}}
      • Alternative operator (//): returns the right-hand value when the left is null, false, or empty — a fallback default, not a structural merge.
    • The only official use of "floor" in jq is the math built-in floor (rounds a number down to the nearest integer).
    • If you encountered "floor merge" in a specific blog post, codebase, or talk, that context would clarify the intent; the term is not canonical in jq.