YAML Cheatsheet

Last Updated: 2024-01-27

Multiline Strings

Indented text that follows should be interpreted as a multi-line scalar value

• default: newlines become spaces.
• |: preserves newlines.
  • |+: keep extra newlines after the block.
  • |-: remove extra newlines after block.
• >: newlines are converted to spaces.
  • >+: keep extra newlines after the block.
  • >-: remove extra newlines after block.

$ cat <<EOF | yq '.content'
content:
  a b
  c d e

  f g
EOF
# a b c d e
# f g

$ cat <<EOF | yq '.content'
content: |
  a b
  c d e

  f g
EOF
# a b
# c d e
#
# f g
#

$ cat <<EOF | yq '.content'
content: |+
  a b
  c d e

  f g
EOF
# a b
# c d e
#
# f g
#

$ cat <<EOF | yq '.content'
content: |-
  a b
  c d e

  f g
EOF
# a b
# c d e
#
# f g

$ cat <<EOF | yq '.content'
content: >
  a b
  c d e

  f g
EOF
# a b c d e
# f g
#

$ cat <<EOF | yq '.content'
content: >-
  a b
  c d e

  f g
EOF
# a b c d e
# f g

Interactive examples: https://yaml-multiline.info/

Single-quoted vs Double-quoted

• single: don't escape (e.g. \n, \" has no effects). To escape single quotes: ''.
• double: escapes work. To escape double quotes: \".

By Language

Go

JSON is included in Go's standard library, but not YAML. There are a few third-party options:

• go-yaml: https://github.com/go-yaml/yaml
  • inconsistent with how JSON is handled in golang.
  • go-yaml works virtually identically to the JSON library, except instead of JSON struct tags, you use YAML struct tags, and instead of MarshalJSON and UnmarshalJSON, you use MarshalYAML and UnmarshalYAML.
• sigs.k8s.io/yaml: https://pkg.go.dev/sigs.k8s.io/yaml
  • wrapping go-yaml
  • first converts YAML to JSON using go-yaml and then uses json.Marshal and json.Unmarshal to convert to or from the struct.
  • Benefits: reuse JSON struct tags as well as the custom JSON methods MarshalJSON and UnmarshalJSON unlike go-yaml.
  • As the name suggests: used in k8s.

go-yaml

Install gopkg.in/yaml.v3:

$ go get gopkg.in/yaml.v3

import "gopkg.in/yaml.v3"

// Marshal
bytes, err := yaml.Marshal(&foo)

// Unmarshal
err := yaml.Unmarshal(bytes, &foo)

k8s yaml

API:

func Marshal(o interface{}) ([]byte, error)
func Unmarshal(y []byte, o interface{}, opts ...JSONOpt) error

Import:

import "sigs.k8s.io/yaml"

Python

yaml module can be used to easily read or write yaml files.

Install:

$ pip install yaml

In code:

>>> import yaml

# Read from file
>>> yaml.load(open("test.yml"))

# Write to File
>>> yaml.dump(obj)