yq/operators/comment-operators.md

Comment Operators

Use these comment operators to set or retrieve comments.

Like the = and |= assign operators, the same syntax applies when updating comments:

plain form: =

This will assign the LHS nodes comments to the expression on the RHS. The RHS is run against the matching nodes in the pipeline

relative form: |=

Similar to the plain form, however the RHS evaluates against each matching LHS node! This is useful if you want to set the comments as a relative expression of the node, for instance its value or path.

Set line comment

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat

then

yq eval '.a lineComment="single"' sample.yml

will output

a: cat # single

Use update assign to perform relative updates

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat
b: dog

then

yq eval '.. lineComment |= .' sample.yml

will output

a: cat # cat
b: dog # dog

Set head comment

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat

then

yq eval '. headComment="single"' sample.yml

will output

# single

a: cat

Set foot comment, using an expression

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat

then

yq eval '. footComment=.a' sample.yml

will output

a: cat

# cat

Remove comment

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat # comment
b: dog # leave this

then

yq eval '.a lineComment=""' sample.yml

will output

a: cat
b: dog # leave this

Remove (strip) all comments

Note the use of ... to ensure key nodes are included.

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat # comment
# great
b: # key comment

then

yq eval '... comments=""' sample.yml

will output

a: cat
b:

Get line comment

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat # meow

then

yq eval '.a | lineComment' sample.yml

will output

meow

Get head comment

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat # meow

then

yq eval '. | headComment' sample.yml

will output

Get foot comment

Given a sample.yml file of:

a: cat # meow

then

yq eval '. | footComment' sample.yml

will output