yq/operators/equals.md

Equals / Not Equals

This is a boolean operator that will return true if the LHS is equal to the RHS and false otherwise.

.a == .b

It is most often used with the select operator to find particular nodes:

select(.a == .b)

The not equals != operator returns false if the LHS is equal to the RHS.

{% hint style="info" %}

Note that the != operator contains ! which can trigger bash history expansion in interactive shells:

# May fail with: bash: !": event not found
yq '.status != "healthy"' file.yaml

Workarounds:

# Use $'...' quoting
yq $'.status != "healthy"' file.yaml

# Or use | not instead of !=
yq '.status == "healthy" | not' file.yaml

{% endhint %}

Related Operators

• comparison (>=, < etc) operators here
• boolean operators (and, or, any etc) here
• select operator here

Match string

Given a sample.yml file of:

- cat
- goat
- dog

then

yq '.[] | (. == "*at")' sample.yml

will output

true
true
false

Don't match string

Given a sample.yml file of:

- cat
- goat
- dog

then

yq '.[] | (. != "*at")' sample.yml

will output

false
false
true

Match number

Given a sample.yml file of:

- 3
- 4
- 5

then

yq '.[] | (. == 4)' sample.yml

will output

false
true
false

Don't match number

Given a sample.yml file of:

- 3
- 4
- 5

then

yq '.[] | (. != 4)' sample.yml

will output

true
false
true

Match nulls

Running

yq --null-input 'null == ~'

will output

true

Non existent key doesn't equal a value

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: frog

then

yq 'select(.b != "thing")' sample.yml

will output

a: frog

Two non existent keys are equal

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: frog

then

yq 'select(.b == .c)' sample.yml

will output

a: frog