Anchor and Alias Operators

Use the alias and anchor operators to read and write yaml aliases and anchors. The explode operator normalises a yaml file (dereference aliases and remove anchor names).
yq supports merge aliases (like <<: *blah) however this is no longer in the standard yaml spec (1.2) and so yq will automatically add the !!merge tag to these nodes as it is effectively a custom tag.
Get anchor
Given a sample.yml file of:
a: &billyBob cat
then
yq eval '.a | anchor' sample.yml
will output
billyBob
Set anchor
Given a sample.yml file of:
a: cat
then
yq eval '.a anchor = "foobar"' sample.yml
will output
a: &foobar cat
Set anchor relatively using assign-update
Given a sample.yml file of:
a:
  b: cat
then
yq eval '.a anchor |= .b' sample.yml
will output
a: &cat
  b: cat
Get alias
Given a sample.yml file of:
b: &billyBob meow
a: *billyBob
then
yq eval '.a | alias' sample.yml
will output
billyBob
Set alias
Given a sample.yml file of:
b: &meow purr
a: cat
then
yq eval '.a alias = "meow"' sample.yml
will output
b: &meow purr
a: *meow
Set alias relatively using assign-update
Given a sample.yml file of:
b: &meow purr
a:
  f: meow
then
yq eval '.a alias |= .f' sample.yml
will output
b: &meow purr
a: *meow
Explode alias and anchor
Given a sample.yml file of:
f:
  a: &a cat
  b: *a
then
yq eval 'explode(.f)' sample.yml
will output
f:
  a: cat
  b: cat
Explode with no aliases or anchors
Given a sample.yml file of:
a: mike
then
yq eval 'explode(.a)' sample.yml
will output
a: mike
Explode with alias keys
Given a sample.yml file of:
f:
  a: &a cat
  *a: b
then
yq eval 'explode(.f)' sample.yml
will output
f:
  a: cat
  cat: b
Explode with merge anchors
Given a sample.yml file of:
foo: &foo
  a: foo_a
  thing: foo_thing
  c: foo_c
bar: &bar
  b: bar_b
  thing: bar_thing
  c: bar_c
foobarList:
  b: foobarList_b
  !!merge <<:
    - *foo
    - *bar
  c: foobarList_c
foobar:
  c: foobar_c
  !!merge <<: *foo
  thing: foobar_thing
then
yq eval 'explode(.)' sample.yml
will output
foo:
  a: foo_a
  thing: foo_thing
  c: foo_c
bar:
  b: bar_b
  thing: bar_thing
  c: bar_c
foobarList:
  b: bar_b
  a: foo_a
  thing: bar_thing
  c: foobarList_c
foobar:
  c: foo_c
  a: foo_a
  thing: foobar_thing
Alternative (Default value)
Assign
Last updated 6 days ago