go-yaml-cli

A command line tool for the github.com/yaml/go-yaml library

Description

This repo creates a command line tool called go-yaml.

It read YAML from stdin and outputs it in many formats, including the internal states of go-yaml.

This program is extremely useful for understanding / debugging how go-yaml loads YAML documents.

You might want to use its output to report bugs for behaviors of go-yaml or its downstream consumers.

Installation

Run:

$ make install PREFIX=<prefix>

Where <prefix> is the directory that contains a bin subdirectory where the go-yaml binary will be installed: <prefix>/bin/go-yaml.

If you have GOROOT set in your environment, you could use:

$ make install PREFIX="$GOROOT"

Note: go install github.com/yaml/go-yaml-cli@latest doesn't work for this repo yet.

CLI Usage

This program reads YAML from stdin and prints output according to the options you give it (to stdout).

go-yaml --help describes the usage well:

$ go-yaml --help
go-yaml version 4.0.0.1

The 'go-yaml' tool shows how the go.yaml.in/yaml/v4 library handles YAML both
internally and externally. It is a tool for testing and debugging the library.

It reads YAML input text from stdin and writes results to stdout.

The go-yaml API has two different pairs of functions for reading and writing
YAML: Decode/Encode and Unmarshal/Marshal.

Decode and Encode are used by default. Use -u and -m for Unmarshal and Marshal.


Usage:
  go-yaml [options]

Options:
  -y, --yaml       YAML encoding output
  -Y, --YAML       YAML w/ style and comments preserved

  -j, --json       JSON compact output
  -J, --JSON       JSON pretty output

  -t, --token      Token output
  -T, --TOKEN      Token with line info

  -e, --event      Event output
  -E, --EVENT      Event with line info

  -n, --node       Node representation output

  -l, --long       Long (block) formatted output

  -u, --unmarshal  Use Unmarshal instead of Decode for YAML input
  -m, --marshal    Use Marshal instead of Encode for YAML output

  -h, --help       Show this help information
  --version        Show version information

Makefile Usage

$ make build
$ make test
$ make install PREFIX=<prefix>
$ make clean
$ make distclean

Using the Makefile requires no prerequisites. On first run, this will install all dependencies locally in this directory including a local installation of Go.

License

Copyright 2025 - Ingy döt Net

This project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

See the LICENSE file for details.