xxxxxxxxxx
$ eval "$(jq -r '@sh "a=\(.a) b=\(.b)"')"
# or
$ jq -r '@sh "a=\(.a) b=\(.b)"' | while read -r line; do eval "$line"; ; done
# or
vars=( $(jq -n -r '[1,2.3, null, "abc"] | .[] | @sh' ) )
for f in "${vars[@]}"; do echo "$f" ; done
1
2.3
null
'abc'