[stormbrew]

> They can't be "in a different order" as JSON keys are not ordered. They can be whatever order, and would still be considered the same.

This is what GP is saying, I'm pretty sure. Object member order is non-semantic in json, so in order to do a semantic diff (one that understands structure), you need to canonicalize the order of the two sides. Simply diffing the output of jq doesn't do that, because (afaik) jq doesn't alter the order.

Basically, if you want this to come up the same:

    {"a":"b","c":"d"}
    {"c":"d","a":"b"}

you need more than just `diff $(jq) $(jq)`.

Can argue about whether a tool like difftastic should do that, I guess, but I would personally lean towards that it should be smart enough to see this because it's precisely the sort of thing that both humans and line-based diff can be awful at seeing.

[fwip]

Just an FYI, jq has a flag to sort by the name of keys, I believe it's -k.

[stormbrew]

Fair enough! I should just never assume jq doesn't have a feature.