jq function pad

I frequently format jq output in a one line per item string with | separators. This makes it easy to copy/paste into excel or contruct a markdown table. Here is an example of the same formatting using a jq def function. Ie the lpad and rpad functions in the code below.

#!/bin/bash

endpoint="http://192.168.1.10:12321/desktop"

if [ -n "$1" ]; then
    echo "get # of links: $1"
    SQL="SELECT link_date, link_text, link_url FROM links ORDER BY link_date DESC LIMIT ${1}"
else
    echo "No # of links then show all"
    SQL="SELECT link_date, link_text, link_url FROM links ORDER BY link_date DESC"
fi

### sqlite3 web service
transaction=$(cat <<EOT
{
    "transaction": [
        {
            "query": "$SQL"
        }
    ]
}
EOT
)

response=$(curl -s X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "$transaction" ${endpoint} | jq -r '.results[].resultSet[]')
echo $response | jq -r '
  def lpad($len; $char): tostring | ($char * ([$len - length, 0] | max)) + .;
  def rpad($len; $char): tostring | . + ($char * ([$len - length, 0] | max));

  "\(.link_date) | \(.link_text | rpad(40; " ")) |  \(.link_url)" 
'

NOTE: included the whole script since I re-use this sqlite webservice pattern a lot