Split into multiple files

yq can split out the results into multiple files with the --split-exp/s flag. You will need to give this flag an expression (that returns a string), this will be used as the filename for each result. In this expression, you can use $index to represent the result index in the name, if desired.

Split documents into files

Given a file like

a: test_doc1
--- 
a: test_doc2

Then running:

yq -s '.a' myfile.yml

will result in two files:

test_doc1.yml:

a: test_doc1

test_doc2.yml:

---
a: test_doc2

TIP: if you don't want the leading document separators (---), then run with the --no-doc flag.

Split documents into files, using index

This is like the example above, but we'll use $index for the filename. Note that this variable is only defined for the --split-exp/s flag.

yq -s '"file_" + $index' myfile.yml

This will create two files, file_0.yml and file_1.yml.

Split single document into files

You can also split results into separate files. Notice

- name: bob
  age: 23
- name: tim
  age: 17

Then, by splatting the array into individual results, we can split the content into several files:

yq '.[]' file.yml -s '"user_" + .name'

will result in two files:

user_bob.yml:

name: bob
age: 23

user_tim.yml:

name: tim
age: 17