YX(1)

💅 yx(1) — the girlies' guide to pulling data out of YAML

okay so first things first: this is the manual page for yx, and it lives in section 1 of the General Commands Manual (that's the (1) bestie, that's what it means 🎀). It's a little command-line icon and she's here to help.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

yx [-hv] [-d n] [-f file] [key | index] ...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

yx parses a YAML file and prints out the value that's selected by the path you give it — and that path is literally just the list of key and index arguments you tack on. That's it. That's the whole vibe check. 🦋

• -d n, --doc n — use the n'th YAML document, bestie. By default the first YAML document is the one that gets used. 📄
• -f file, --file file — read the YAML input from file. By default, standard input is used. Standard input can also be explicitly requested by specifying file as '-' (yes, literally just a dash, she's iconic like that). 🗂️
• -h, --help — print usage and exit. classic. 💫
• -v, --version — print program version and exit. also classic. 💫

now for the actual path mechanics, and ngl this part is the main character energy of the whole page:

A path component is either a key or an index. A key selects from a mapping. An index (1-based, so like, the first one is 1, not 0, we're not doing that here) selects from a sequence. 🔑

If the path selects a scalar value, that value gets printed on the standard output. simple, clean, ate. ✨

If the path you specify selects a mapping, yx prints the keys of that mapping, one per line. like so:

$ cat map.yaml
foo: one
bar: two
blah: argh
$ yx -f map.yaml
foo
bar
blah

If the path you specify selects a sequence, yx prints the list of valid indices, one per line. like so:

$ cat seq.yaml
[one, two, three]
$ yx -f seq.yaml
1
2
3

see? valid indices. one per line. gorgeous. 👑

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

yx was written as a helper utility for tiny-cloud, to parse user-data from shell scripts. so basically she started out as a little behind-the-scenes bestie and now she has her own manpage. glow up fr fr. 🌈

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

Jake Buchholz Göktürk <tomalok@gmail.com>

💖 and that's the whole page, bestie! no cap, you're now a yx expert.

sign-off time: this one came from Debian, dated January 20, 2024. mwah, go forth and parse 💜🧚‍♀️