Recursive Descent (Glob)

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This operator recursively matches (or globs) all children nodes given of a particular element, including that node itself. This is most often used to apply a filter recursively against all matches. It can be used in either the
match values form ..
This will, like the jq equivalent, recursively match all value nodes. Use it to find/manipulate particular values.
For instance to set the style of all value nodes in a yaml doc, excluding map keys:
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yq '.. style= "flow"' file.yaml
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match values and map keys form ...
The also includes map keys in the results set. This is particularly useful in YAML as unlike JSON, map keys can have their own styling, tags and use anchors and aliases.
For instance to set the style of all nodes in a yaml doc, including the map keys:
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yq '... style= "flow"' file.yaml
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Note that versions prior to 4.18 require the 'eval/e' command to be specified.
yq e <exp> <file>
Recurse map (values only)
Given a sample.yml file of:
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a: frog
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then
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yq '..' sample.yml
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will output
1
a: frog
2
frog
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Recursively find nodes with keys
Note that this example has wrapped the expression in [] to show that there are two matches returned. You do not have to wrap in [] in your path expression.
Given a sample.yml file of:
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a:
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  name: frog
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  b:
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    name: blog
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    age: 12
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then
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yq '[.. | select(has("name"))]' sample.yml
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will output
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- name: frog
2
  b:
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    name: blog
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    age: 12
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- name: blog
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  age: 12
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Recursively find nodes with values
Given a sample.yml file of:
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a:
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  nameA: frog
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  b:
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    nameB: frog
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    age: 12
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then
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yq '.. | select(. == "frog")' sample.yml
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will output
1
frog
2
frog
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Recurse map (values and keys)
Note that the map key appears in the results
Given a sample.yml file of:
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a: frog
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then
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yq '...' sample.yml
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will output
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a: frog
2
a
3
frog
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Aliases are not traversed
Given a sample.yml file of:
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a: &cat
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  c: frog
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b: *cat
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then
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yq '[..]' sample.yml
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will output
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- a: &cat
2
    c: frog
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  b: *cat
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- &cat
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  c: frog
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- frog
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- *cat
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Merge docs are not traversed
Given a sample.yml file of:
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foo: &foo
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  a: foo_a
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  thing: foo_thing
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  c: foo_c
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bar: &bar
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  b: bar_b
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  thing: bar_thing
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  c: bar_c
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foobarList:
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  b: foobarList_b
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  !!merge <<:
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    - *foo
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    - *bar
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  c: foobarList_c
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foobar:
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  c: foobar_c
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  !!merge <<: *foo
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  thing: foobar_thing
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then
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yq '.foobar | [..]' sample.yml
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will output
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- c: foobar_c
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  !!merge <<: *foo
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  thing: foobar_thing
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- foobar_c
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- *foo
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- foobar_thing
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