# Recursive Descent (Glob) 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: ```bash yq eval '.. style= "flow"' file.yaml ``` ## 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: ```bash yq eval '... style= "flow"' file.yaml ``` ## Recurse map (values only) Given a sample.yml file of: ```yaml a: frog ``` then ```bash yq eval '..' sample.yml ``` will output ```yaml a: frog frog ``` ## 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: ```yaml a: name: frog b: name: blog age: 12 ``` then ```bash yq eval '[.. | select(has("name"))]' sample.yml ``` will output ```yaml - name: frog b: name: blog age: 12 - name: blog age: 12 ``` ## Recursively find nodes with values Given a sample.yml file of: ```yaml a: nameA: frog b: nameB: frog age: 12 ``` then ```bash yq eval '.. | select(. == "frog")' sample.yml ``` will output ```yaml frog frog ``` ## Recurse map (values and keys) Note that the map key appears in the results Given a sample.yml file of: ```yaml a: frog ``` then ```bash yq eval '...' sample.yml ``` will output ```yaml a: frog a frog ``` ## Aliases are not traversed Given a sample.yml file of: ```yaml a: &cat c: frog b: *cat ``` then ```bash yq eval '[..]' sample.yml ``` will output ```yaml - a: &cat c: frog b: *cat - &cat c: frog - frog - *cat ``` ## Merge docs are not traversed Given a sample.yml file of: ```yaml 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 ```bash yq eval '.foobar | [..]' sample.yml ``` will output ```yaml - c: foobar_c !!merge <<: *foo thing: foobar_thing - foobar_c - *foo - foobar_thing ```