# JSON to Arrow
[](https://crates.io/crates/json2arrow)
Convert JSON files to Apache Arrow. This package is part of [Arrow CLI tools](https://github.com/domoritz/arrow-tools).
## Installation
### Download prebuilt binaries
You can get the latest releases from https://github.com/domoritz/arrow-tools/releases.
### With Homebrew
```
brew install domoritz/homebrew-tap/json2arrow
```
### With Cargo
```
cargo install json2arrow
```
## With [Cargo B(inary)Install](https://github.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall)
To avoid re-compilation and speed up installation, you can install this tool with `cargo binstall`:
```
cargo binstall json2arrow
```
## Usage
```
Usage: json2arrow [OPTIONS] <JSON> [ARROW]
Arguments:
<JSON> Input JSON file, stdin if not present
[ARROW] Output file, stdout if not present
Options:
-s, --schema-file <SCHEMA_FILE>
File with Arrow schema in JSON format
-m, --max-read-records <MAX_READ_RECORDS>
The number of records to infer the schema from. All rows if not present. Setting max-read-records to zero will stop schema inference and all columns will be string typed
-p, --print-schema
Print the schema to stderr
-n, --dry
Only print the schema
-h, --help
Print help
-V, --version
Print version
```
The --schema-file option uses the same file format as --dry and --print-schema.
## Examples
For usage examples, see the [`csv2parquet` examples](https://github.com/domoritz/arrow-tools/tree/main/crates/csv2parquet#examples) which shares a similar interface.
## Limitations
Since we use the Arrow JSON loader, we are limited to what it supports. Right now, it supports JSON line-delimited files.
```json
{ "a": 42, "b": true }
{ "a": 12, "b": false }
{ "a": 7, "b": true }
```