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  2. yq: Command-line YAML/XML/TOML processor - jq wrapper for YAML, XML, TOML documents

yq: Command-line YAML/XML/TOML processor - jq wrapper for YAML, XML, TOML documents

Installation

pip3 install yq

Before using yq, you also have to install its dependency, jq. See the jq installation instructions for details and directions specific to your platform.

On macOS, yq is also available on Homebrew: use brew install python-yq.

Synopsis

yq takes YAML input, converts it to JSON, and pipes it to jq:

cat input.yml | yq .foo.bar

Like in jq, you can also specify input filename(s) as arguments:

yq .foo.bar input.yml

By default, no conversion of jq output is done. Use the --yaml-output/-y option to convert it back into YAML:

cat input.yml | yq -y .foo.bar

Mapping key order is preserved. By default, custom YAML tags and styles in the input are ignored. Use the --yaml-roundtrip/-Y option to preserve YAML tags and styles by representing them as extra items in their enclosing mappings and sequences while in JSON:

yq -Y .foo.bar input.yml

Use the --width/-w option to pass the line wrap width for string literals. With -y/-Y, files can be edited in place like with sed -i: yq -yi .foo=1 *.yml. All other command line arguments are forwarded to jq. yq forwards the exit code jq produced, unless there was an error in YAML parsing, in which case the exit code is 1. See the jq manual for more details on jq features and options.

Because YAML treats JSON as a dialect of YAML, you can use yq to convert JSON to YAML: yq -y . < in.json > out.yml.

Preserving tags and styles using the -Y (--yaml-roundtrip) option

The -Y option helps preserve custom string styles and tags in your document. For example, consider the following document (an AWS CloudFormation template fragment):

Resources:
  ElasticLoadBalancer:
    Type: 'AWS::ElasticLoadBalancing::LoadBalancer'
    Properties:
      AvailabilityZones: !GetAZs ''
      Instances:
        - !Ref Ec2Instance1
        - !Ref Ec2Instance2
      Description: >-
        Load balancer for Big Important Service.

        Good thing it's managed by this template.

Passing this document through yq -y .Resources.ElasticLoadBalancer will drop custom tags, such as !Ref, and styles, such as the folded style of the Description field:

Type: AWS::ElasticLoadBalancing::LoadBalancer
Properties:
  AvailabilityZones: ''
  Instances:
    - Ec2Instance1
    - Ec2Instance2
  Description: 'Load balancer for Big Important Service.

    Good thing it''s managed by this template.'

By contrast, passing it through yq -Y .Resources.ElasticLoadBalancer will preserve tags and styles:

Type: 'AWS::ElasticLoadBalancing::LoadBalancer'
Properties:
  AvailabilityZones: !GetAZs ''
  Instances:
    - !Ref 'Ec2Instance1'
    - !Ref 'Ec2Instance2'
  Description: >-
    Load balancer for Big Important Service.

    Good thing it's managed by this template.

To accomplish this in -Y mode, yq carries extra metadata (mapping pairs and sequence values) in the JSON representation of your document for any custom tags or styles that it finds. When converting the JSON back into YAML, it parses this metadata, re-applies the tags and styles, and discards the extra pairs and values.

Warning

The -Y option is incompatible with jq filters that do not expect the extra information injected into the document to preserve the YAML formatting. For example, a jq filter that counts entries in the Instances array will come up with 4 entries instead of 2. A filter that expects all array entries to be mappings may break due to the presence of string metadata keys. Check your jq filter for compatibility/semantic validity when using the -Y option.

XML support

yq also supports XML. The yq package installs an executable, xq, which transcodes XML to JSON using xmltodict and pipes it to jq. Roundtrip transcoding is available with the xq --xml-output/xq -x option. Multiple XML documents can be passed in separate files/streams as xq a.xml b.xml. Entity expansion and DTD resolution is disabled to avoid XML parsing vulnerabilities.

TOML support

yq supports TOML as well. The yq package installs an executable, tomlq, which uses the toml library to transcode TOML to JSON, then pipes it to jq. Roundtrip transcoding is available with the tomlq --toml-output/tomlq -t option.

Compatibility note

This package’s release series available on PyPI begins with version 2.0.0. Versions of yq prior to 2.0.0 are distributed by https://github.com/abesto/yq and are not related to this package. No guarantees of compatibility are made between abesto/yq and kislyuk/yq. This package follows the Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 standard. To ensure proper operation, declare dependency version ranges according to SemVer.

Authors

  • Andrey Kislyuk

License

Licensed under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.

https://github.com/kislyuk/yq/workflows/Python%20package/badge.svg https://codecov.io/github/kislyuk/yq/coverage.svg?branch=master https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/yq.svg https://img.shields.io/pypi/l/yq.svg

CLI usage

usage: yq [options] <jq filter> [input file...]
          [--indentless-lists] [--in-place] [--version]
          [jq_filter] [files [files ...]]

yq: Command-line YAML processor - jq wrapper for YAML documents

yq transcodes YAML documents to JSON and passes them to jq.
See https://github.com/kislyuk/yq for more information.

positional arguments:
  jq_filter
  files

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --yaml-output, --yml-output, -y
                        Transcode jq JSON output back into YAML and emit it
  --yaml-roundtrip, --yml-roundtrip, -Y
                        Transcode jq JSON output back into YAML and emit it. Preserve YAML tags and styles by representing them as extra items in their enclosing mappings and sequences while in JSON. This option is incompatible with jq filters that do not expect these extra items.
  --yaml-output-grammar-version {1.1,1.2}, --yml-out-ver {1.1,1.2}
                        When using --yaml-output, specify output grammar (the default is 1.1 and will be changed to 1.2 in a future version). Setting this to 1.2 will cause strings like 'on' and 'no' to be emitted unquoted.
  --width WIDTH, -w WIDTH
                        When using --yaml-output, specify string wrap width
  --indentless-lists, --indentless
                        When using --yaml-output, indent block style lists (sequences) with 0 spaces instead of 2
  --in-place, -i        Edit files in place (no backup - use caution)
  --version             show program's version number and exit

jq - commandline JSON processor [version 1.6]

Usage:	/Users/andrey.kislyuk/.asdf/installs/jq/1.6/bin/jq [options] <jq filter> [file...]
	/Users/andrey.kislyuk/.asdf/installs/jq/1.6/bin/jq [options] --args <jq filter> [strings...]
	/Users/andrey.kislyuk/.asdf/installs/jq/1.6/bin/jq [options] --jsonargs <jq filter> [JSON_TEXTS...]

jq is a tool for processing JSON inputs, applying the given filter to
its JSON text inputs and producing the filter's results as JSON on
standard output.

The simplest filter is ., which copies jq's input to its output
unmodified (except for formatting, but note that IEEE754 is used
for number representation internally, with all that that implies).

For more advanced filters see the jq(1) manpage ("man jq")
and/or https://stedolan.github.io/jq

Example:

	$ echo '{"foo": 0}' | jq .
	{
		"foo": 0
	}

Some of the options include:
  -c               compact instead of pretty-printed output;
  -n               use `null` as the single input value;
  -e               set the exit status code based on the output;
  -s               read (slurp) all inputs into an array; apply filter to it;
  -r               output raw strings, not JSON texts;
  -R               read raw strings, not JSON texts;
  -C               colorize JSON;
  -M               monochrome (don't colorize JSON);
  -S               sort keys of objects on output;
  --tab            use tabs for indentation;
  --arg a v        set variable $a to value <v>;
  --argjson a v    set variable $a to JSON value <v>;
  --slurpfile a f  set variable $a to an array of JSON texts read from <f>;
  --rawfile a f    set variable $a to a string consisting of the contents of <f>;
  --args           remaining arguments are string arguments, not files;
  --jsonargs       remaining arguments are JSON arguments, not files;
  --               terminates argument processing;

Named arguments are also available as $ARGS.named[], while
positional arguments are available as $ARGS.positional[].

See the manpage for more options.

Change log

Release Notes
© Copyright Andrey Kislyuk. Created using Sphinx.