YAML::PP(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation YAML::PP(3) NAME YAML::PP - YAML 1.2 processor SYNOPSIS WARNING: Most of the inner API is not stable yet. Here are a few examples of the basic load and dump methods: use YAML::PP; my $ypp = YAML::PP->new; my $yaml = <<'EOM'; --- # Document one is a mapping name: Tina age: 29 favourite language: Perl --- # Document two is a sequence - plain string - 'in single quotes' - "in double quotes we have escapes! like \t and \n" - | # a literal block scalar line1 line2 - > # a folded block scalar this is all one single line because the linebreaks will be folded EOM my @documents = $ypp->load_string($yaml); my @documents = $ypp->load_file($filename); my $yaml = $ypp->dump_string($data1, $data2); $ypp->dump_file($filename, $data1, $data2); # Enable perl data types and objects my $ypp = YAML::PP->new(schema => [qw/ + Perl /]); my $yaml = $yp->dump_string($data_with_perl_objects); # Legacy interface use YAML::PP qw/ Load Dump LoadFile DumpFile /; my @documents = Load($yaml); my @documents = LoadFile($filename); my @documents = LoadFile($filehandle); my $yaml = = Dump(@documents); DumpFile($filename, @documents); DumpFile($filenhandle @documents); Some utility scripts, mostly useful for debugging: # Load YAML into a data structure and dump with Data::Dumper yamlpp-load < file.yaml # Load and Dump yamlpp-load-dump < file.yaml # Print the events from the parser in yaml-test-suite format yamlpp-events < file.yaml # Parse and emit events directly without loading yamlpp-parse-emit < file.yaml # Create ANSI colored YAML. Can also be useful for invalid YAML, showing # you the exact location of the error yamlpp-highlight < file.yaml DESCRIPTION YAML::PP is a modular YAML processor. It aims to support "YAML 1.2" and "YAML 1.1". See . Some (rare) syntax elements are not yet supported and documented below. YAML is a serialization language. The YAML input is called "YAML Stream". A stream consists of one or more "Documents", separated by a line with a document start marker "---". A document optionally ends with the document end marker "...". This allows one to process continuous streams additionally to a fixed input file or string. The YAML::PP frontend will currently load all documents, and return only the first if called with scalar context. The YAML backend is implemented in a modular way that allows one to add custom handling of YAML tags, perl objects and data types. The inner API is not yet stable. Suggestions welcome. You can check out all current parse and load results from the yaml- test-suite here: METHODS new my $ypp = YAML::PP->new; # use YAML 1.2 Failsafe Schema my $ypp = YAML::PP->new( schema => ['Failsafe'] ); # use YAML 1.2 JSON Schema my $ypp = YAML::PP->new( schema => ['JSON'] ); # use YAML 1.2 Core Schema my $ypp = YAML::PP->new( schema => ['Core'] ); # Die when detecting cyclic references my $ypp = YAML::PP->new( cyclic_refs => 'fatal' ); my $ypp = YAML::PP->new( boolean => 'perl', schema => ['Core'], cyclic_refs => 'fatal', indent => 4, header => 1, footer => 0, version_directive => 0, ); Options: boolean Values: "perl" (currently default), "JSON::PP", "boolean", "perl_experimental" This option is for loading and dumping. In case of perl 5.36 and later, builtin booleans should work out of the box (since YAML::PP >= 0.38.0). print YAML::PP->new->dump_string([ builtin::true, !1 ]); # --- # - true # - false For earlier perl versions, you can use "pseudo" booleans like documented in the following examples. # load/dump booleans via boolean.pm my $ypp = YAML::PP->new( boolean => 'boolean' ); # load/dump booleans via JSON::PP::true/false my $ypp = YAML::PP->new( boolean => 'JSON::PP' ); You can also specify more than one class, comma separated. This is important for dumping. boolean => 'JSON::PP,boolean' Booleans will be loaded as JSON::PP::Booleans, but when dumping, also 'boolean' objects will be recognized boolean => 'JSON::PP,*' Booleans will be loaded as JSON::PP::Booleans, but when dumping, all currently supported boolean classes will be recognized boolean => '*' Booleans will be loaded as perl booleans, but when dumping, all currently supported boolean classes will be recognized boolean => '' Booleans will be loaded as perl booleans, but when dumping, nothing will be recognized as booleans. This option is for backwards compatibility for perl versions < 5.36, if you rely on [!!1, !1] being dumped as [1, '']. The option "perl_experimental" was introduced when experimental boolean support was added to perl 5.36. Since it will not be experimental anymore in perl 5.40 \o/ the option is deprecated and the same as "perl". schema Default: "['Core']" This option is for loading and dumping. Array reference. Here you can define what schema to use. Supported standard Schemas are: "Failsafe", "JSON", "Core", "YAML1_1". To get an overview how the different Schemas behave, see Additionally you can add further schemas, for example "Merge". cyclic_refs Default: "fatal" (since 0.037) Before the default was "allow", but this can lead to memory leaks when loading on untrusted data, so it was changed to "fatal" by default. This option is for loading only. Defines what to do when a cyclic reference is detected when loading. # fatal - die # warn - Just warn about them and replace with undef # ignore - replace with undef # allow - Default duplicate_keys Default: 0 Since version 0.027 This option is for loading. The YAML Spec says duplicate mapping keys should be forbidden. When set to true, duplicate keys in mappings are allowed (and will overwrite the previous key). When set to false, duplicate keys will result in an error when loading. This is especially useful when you have a longer mapping and don't see the duplicate key in your editor: --- a: 1 b: 2 # ............. a: 23 # error indent Default: 2 This option is for dumping. Use that many spaces for indenting width Since version 0.025 Default: 80 This option is for dumping. Maximum columns when dumping. This is only respected when dumping flow collections right now. in the future it will be used also for wrapping long strings. header Default: 1 This option is for dumping. Print document header "---" footer Default: 0 This option is for dumping. Print document footer "..." yaml_version Since version 0.020 This option is for loading and dumping. Default: 1.2 Note that in this case, a directive "%YAML 1.1" will basically be ignored and everything loaded with the "1.2 Core" Schema. If you want to support both YAML 1.1 and 1.2, you have to specify that, and the schema ("Core" or "YAML1_1") will be chosen automatically. my $yp = YAML::PP->new( yaml_version => ['1.2', '1.1'], ); This is the same as my $yp = YAML::PP->new( schema => ['+'], yaml_version => ['1.2', '1.1'], ); because the "+" stands for the default schema per version. When loading, and there is no %YAML directive, 1.2 will be considered as default, and the "Core" schema will be used. If there is a "%YAML 1.1" directive, the "YAML1_1" schema will be used. Of course, you can also make 1.1 the default: my $yp = YAML::PP->new( yaml_version => ['1.1', '1.2'], ); You can also specify 1.1 only: my $yp = YAML::PP->new( yaml_version => ['1.1'], ); In this case also documents with "%YAML 1.2" will be loaded with the "YAML1_1" schema. version_directive Since version 0.020 This option is for dumping. Default: 0 Print Version Directive "%YAML 1.2" (or "%YAML 1.1") on top of each YAML document. It will use the first version specified in the "yaml_version" option. preserve Since version 0.021 Default: false This option is for loading and dumping. Preserving scalar styles is still experimental. use YAML::PP::Common qw/ :PRESERVE /; # Preserve the order of hash keys my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_ORDER ); # Preserve the quoting style of scalars my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_SCALAR_STYLE ); # Preserve block/flow style (since 0.024) my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_FLOW_STYLE ); # Preserve alias names (since 0.027) my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_ALIAS ); # Combine, e.g. preserve order and scalar style my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_ORDER | PRESERVE_SCALAR_STYLE ); Do NOT rely on the internal implementation of it. If you load the following input: --- z: 1 a: 2 --- - plain - 'single' - "double" - | literal - > folded --- block mapping: &alias flow sequence: [a, b] same mapping: *alias flow mapping: {a: b} with this code: my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_ORDER | PRESERVE_SCALAR_STYLE | PRESERVE_FLOW_STYLE | PRESERVE_ALIAS ); my ($hash, $styles, $flow) = $yp->load_file($file); $yp->dump_file($hash, $styles, $flow); Then dumping it will return the same output. Note that YAML allows repeated definition of anchors. They cannot be preserved with YAML::PP right now. Example: --- - &seq [a] - *seq - &seq [b] - *seq Because the data could be shuffled before dumping again, the anchor definition could be broken. In this case repeated anchor names will be discarded when loading and dumped with numeric anchors like usual. Implementation: When loading, hashes will be tied to an internal class ("YAML::PP::Preserve::Hash") that keeps the key order. Scalars will be returned as objects of an internal class ("YAML::PP::Preserve::Scalar") with overloading. If you assign to such a scalar, the object will be replaced by a simple scalar. # assignment, style gets lost $styles->[1] .= ' append'; You can also pass 1 as a value. In this case all preserving options will be enabled, also if there are new options added in the future. There are also methods to create preserved nodes from scratch. See the preserved_(scalar|mapping|sequence) "METHODS" below. load_string my $doc = $ypp->load_string("foo: bar"); my @docs = $ypp->load_string("foo: bar\n---\n- a"); Input should be Unicode characters. So if you read from a file, you should decode it, for example with Encode::decode(). Note that in scalar context, "load_string" and "load_file" return the first document (like YAML::Syck), while YAML and YAML::XS return the last. load_file my $doc = $ypp->load_file("file.yaml"); my @docs = $ypp->load_file("file.yaml"); Strings will be loaded as unicode characters. dump_string my $yaml = $ypp->dump_string($doc); my $yaml = $ypp->dump_string($doc1, $doc2); my $yaml = $ypp->dump_string(@docs); Input strings should be Unicode characters. Output will return Unicode characters. So if you want to write that to a file (or pass to YAML::XS, for example), you typically encode it via Encode::encode(). dump_file $ypp->dump_file("file.yaml", $doc); $ypp->dump_file("file.yaml", $doc1, $doc2); $ypp->dump_file("file.yaml", @docs); Input data should be Unicode characters. dump This will dump to a predefined writer. By default it will just use the YAML::PP::Writer and output a string. my $writer = MyWriter->new(\my $output); my $yp = YAML::PP->new( writer => $writer, ); $yp->dump($data); preserved_scalar Since version 0.024 Experimental. Please report bugs or let me know this is useful and works. You can define a certain scalar style when dumping data. Figuring out the best style is a hard task and practically impossible to get it right for all cases. It's also a matter of taste. use YAML::PP::Common qw/ PRESERVE_SCALAR_STYLE YAML_LITERAL_SCALAR_STYLE /; my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_SCALAR_STYLE, ); # a single linebreak would normally be dumped with double quotes: "\n" my $scalar = $yp->preserved_scalar("\n", style => YAML_LITERAL_SCALAR_STYLE ); my $data = { literal => $scalar }; my $dump = $yp->dump_string($data); # output --- literal: |+ ... preserved_mapping, preserved_sequence Since version 0.024 Experimental. Please report bugs or let me know this is useful and works. With this you can define which nodes are dumped with the more compact flow style instead of block style. If you add "PRESERVE_ORDER" to the "preserve" option, it will also keep the order of the keys in a hash. use YAML::PP::Common qw/ PRESERVE_ORDER PRESERVE_FLOW_STYLE YAML_FLOW_MAPPING_STYLE YAML_FLOW_SEQUENCE_STYLE /; my $yp = YAML::PP->new( preserve => PRESERVE_FLOW_STYLE | PRESERVE_ORDER ); my $hash = $yp->preserved_mapping({}, style => YAML_FLOW_MAPPING_STYLE); # Add values after initialization to preserve order %$hash = (z => 1, a => 2, y => 3, b => 4); my $array = $yp->preserved_sequence([23, 24], style => YAML_FLOW_SEQUENCE_STYLE); my $data = $yp->preserved_mapping({}); %$data = ( map => $hash, seq => $array ); my $dump = $yp->dump_string($data); # output --- map: {z: 1, a: 2, y: 3, b: 4} seq: [23, 24] loader Returns or sets the loader object, by default YAML::PP::Loader dumper Returns or sets the dumper object, by default YAML::PP::Dumper schema Returns or sets the schema object default_schema Creates and returns the default schema FUNCTIONS The functions "Load", "LoadFile", "Dump" and "DumpFile" are provided as a drop-in replacement for other existing YAML processors. No function is exported by default. Note that in scalar context, "Load" and "LoadFile" return the first document (like YAML::Syck), while YAML and YAML::XS return the last. Load use YAML::PP qw/ Load /; my $doc = Load($yaml); my @docs = Load($yaml); Works like "load_string". LoadFile use YAML::PP qw/ LoadFile /; my $doc = LoadFile($file); my @docs = LoadFile($file); my @docs = LoadFile($filehandle); Works like "load_file". Dump use YAML::PP qw/ Dump /; my $yaml = Dump($doc); my $yaml = Dump(@docs); Works like "dump_string". DumpFile use YAML::PP qw/ DumpFile /; DumpFile($file, $doc); DumpFile($file, @docs); DumpFile($filehandle, @docs); Works like "dump_file". PLUGINS You can alter the behaviour of YAML::PP by using the following schema classes: YAML::PP::Schema::Failsafe One of the three YAML 1.2 official schemas YAML::PP::Schema::JSON One of the three YAML 1.2 official schemas. YAML::PP::Schema::Core One of the three YAML 1.2 official schemas. Default YAML::PP::Schema::YAML1_1 Schema implementing the most common YAML 1.1 types YAML::PP::Schema::Perl Serializing Perl objects and types YAML::PP::Schema::Binary Serializing binary data YAML::PP::Schema::Tie::IxHash Deprecated. See option "preserve" YAML::PP::Schema::Merge YAML 1.1 merge keys for mappings YAML::PP::Schema::Include Include other YAML files via "!include" tags To make the parsing process faster, you can plugin the libyaml parser with YAML::PP::LibYAML. IMPLEMENTATION The process of loading and dumping is split into the following steps: Load: YAML Stream Tokens Event List Data Structure ---------> ---------> ---------> lex parse construct Dump: Data Structure Event List YAML Stream ---------> ---------> represent emit You can dump basic perl types like hashes, arrays, scalars (strings, numbers). For dumping blessed objects and things like coderefs have a look at YAML::PP::Perl/YAML::PP::Schema::Perl. YAML::PP::Lexer The Lexer is reading the YAML stream into tokens. This makes it possible to generate syntax highlighted YAML output. Note that the API to retrieve the tokens will change. YAML::PP::Parser The Parser retrieves the tokens from the Lexer. The main YAML content is then parsed with the Grammar. YAML::PP::Grammar YAML::PP::Constructor The Constructor creates a data structure from the Parser events. YAML::PP::Loader The Loader combines the constructor and parser. YAML::PP::Dumper The Dumper will delegate to the Representer YAML::PP::Representer The Representer will create Emitter events from the given data structure. YAML::PP::Emitter The Emitter creates a YAML stream. YAML::PP::Parser Still TODO: Implicit collection keys --- [ a, b, c ]: value Implicit mapping in flow style sequences This is supported since 0.029 (except some not relevant cases): --- [ a, b, c: d ] # equals [ a, b, { c: d } ] Plain mapping keys ending with colons --- key ends with two colons::: value This was implemented in 0.037. Supported Characters If you have valid YAML that's not parsed, or the other way round, please create an issue. Line and Column Numbers You will see line and column numbers in the error message. The column numbers might still be wrong in some cases. Error Messages The error messages need to be improved. Unicode Surrogate Pairs Currently loaded as single characters without validating Possibly more YAML::PP::Constructor The Constructor now supports all three YAML 1.2 Schemas, Failsafe, JSON and Core. Additionally you can choose the schema for YAML 1.1 as "YAML1_1". Too see what strings are resolved as booleans, numbers, null etc. look at . You can choose the Schema like this: my $ypp = YAML::PP->new(schema => ['JSON']); # default is 'Core' The Tags "!!seq" and "!!map" are still ignored for now. It supports: Handling of Anchors/Aliases Like in modules like YAML, the Constructor will use references for mappings and sequences, but obviously not for scalars. YAML::XS uses real aliases, which allows also aliasing scalars. I might add an option for that since aliasing is now available in pure perl. Boolean Handling You can choose between 'perl' (1/'', currently default), 'JSON::PP' and 'boolean'.pm for handling boolean types. That allows you to dump the data structure with one of the JSON modules without losing information about booleans. Numbers Numbers are created as real numbers instead of strings, so that they are dumped correctly by modules like JSON::PP or JSON::XS, for example. Complex Keys Mapping Keys in YAML can be more than just scalars. Of course, you can't load that into a native perl structure. The Constructor will stringify those keys with Data::Dumper instead of just returning something like HASH(0x55dc1b5d0178). Example: use YAML::PP; use JSON::PP; my $ypp = YAML::PP->new; my $coder = JSON::PP->new->ascii->pretty->allow_nonref->canonical; my $yaml = <<'EOM'; complex: ? ? a: 1 c: 2 : 23 : 42 EOM my $data = $yppl->load_string($yaml); say $coder->encode($data); __END__ { "complex" : { "{'{a => 1,c => 2}' => 23}" : 42 } } TODO: Parse Tree I would like to generate a complete parse tree, that allows you to manipulate the data structure and also dump it, including all whitespaces and comments. The spec says that this is throwaway content, but I read that many people wish to be able to keep the comments. YAML::PP::Dumper, YAML::PP::Emitter The Dumper should be able to dump strings correctly, adding quotes whenever a plain scalar would look like a special string, like "true", or when it contains or starts with characters that are not allowed. Most strings will be dumped as plain scalars without quotes. If they contain special characters or have a special meaning, they will be dumped with single quotes. If they contain control characters, including <"\n">, they will be dumped with double quotes. It will recognize JSON::PP::Boolean and boolean.pm objects and dump them correctly. Numbers which also have a "PV" flag will be recognized as numbers and not as strings: my $int = 23; say "int: $int"; # $int will now also have a PV flag That means that if you accidentally use a string in numeric context, it will also be recognized as a number: my $string = "23"; my $something = $string + 0; print $yp->dump_string($string); # will be emitted as an integer without quotes! The layout is like libyaml output: key: - a - b - c --- - key1: 1 key2: 2 key3: 3 --- - - a1 - a2 - - b1 - b2 FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions Are "<<" merge keys supported? Yes, this can be enabled optionally, see YAML::PP::Schema::Merge Is there a linter / formatter for YAML There is the widely used "yamllint" , based on python's PyYAML. It is very configurable and will report errors or warnings. It cannot format. Now there is also YAML::Tidy, which will format the given file according to your configuration. So far only a few configuration options exist, but they can already be quite helpful. Which YAML module should I use? There are many YAML modules on CPAN. For historical reasons some of them aren't handling YAML correctly. Most of them are not compatible with the YAML spec and with each other, meaning they can interpret the same YAML differently. The behaviours we are discussing here can be divided into parsing issues (syntax) and loading/constructing issues (for example type resolving which decides what is a number, boolean or null). See also (parsing) and (loading). "YAML.pm" It was written even before the YAML 1.0 spec was finished and by that enabled perl users to process YAML very early. It might work for you if you have simple data, but it's missing quite some features and can also produce YAML that doesn't roundtrip. Nowadays it might be a good idea to switch. YAML::XS A libyaml binding that is robust and widely used. However, there are two things to consider. 1. (syntax) libyaml diverged from the spec in several aspects. They are rare though. 2. The type resolving does not adhere to YAML 1.1 or YAML 1.2, meaning it is incompatible with other YAML libraries in perl or other languages. YAML::Tiny It implements both a tiny subset of YAML, but also a superset. Meaning it will happily accept some YAML documents that are not officially valid. Type resolving is also not implemented according to the spec. YAML::Syck A binding to libsyck. It is even less compatible to YAML than libyaml. Also type resolving is not implemented according to the spec. YAML::PP Regarding YAML syntax, it is the second most YAML 1.2 compatible perl module. The cases it cannot (yet) parse are not relevant in perl programming, e.g. hash keys that are not strings. Regarding type resolving, it is compatible with the YAML 1.2 Core schema, so it should be possible to exchange data as YAML with other libraries in other languages. One downside is that it is the slowest perl YAML module. YAML::Parser This is a parser generated by the YAML grammar, and it's passing all official tests. A YAML::PP::Ref frontend exists that you can use just like YAML::PP. It is quite slow (although it might be ok for small files depending on the use case). The error messages it creates on invalid YAML are not helpful currently. YAML::PP::LibYAML This combines the YAML::LibYAML::API binding for parsing with the YAML::PP frontend for loading and type resolving. It is faster than YAML::PP but slower than YAML::XS. The divergence from the YAML spec regarding syntax is usually not a problem, and at the same time you have the advantage of being compatible to the YAML 1.2 Core Schema. WHY Why did I start to write a new YAML module? All the available parsers and loaders for Perl are behaving differently, and more important, aren't conforming to the spec. YAML::XS is doing pretty well, but "libyaml" only handles YAML 1.1 and diverges a bit from the spec. The pure perl loaders lack support for a number of features. I was going over YAML.pm issues end of 2016, integrating old patches from rt.cpan.org and creating some pull requests myself. I realized that it would be difficult to patch YAML.pm to parse YAML 1.1 or even 1.2, and it would also break existing usages relying on the current behaviour. In 2016 Ingy dot Net initiated two really cool projects: "YAML TEST SUITE" "YAML EDITOR" These projects are a big help for any developer. So I got the idea to write my own parser and started on New Year's Day 2017. Without the test suite and the editor I would have never started this. I also started another YAML Test project which allows one to get a quick overview of which frameworks support which YAML features: "YAML TEST MATRIX" YAML TEST SUITE It contains almost 400 test cases and expected parsing events and more. There will be more tests coming. This test suite allows you to write parsers without turning the examples from the Specification into tests yourself. Also the examples aren't completely covering all cases - the test suite aims to do that. Thanks also to Felix Krause, who is writing a YAML parser in Nim. He turned all the spec examples into test cases. YAML EDITOR This is a tool to play around with several YAML parsers and loaders in vim. The project contains the code to build the frameworks (16 as of this writing) and put it into one big Docker image. It also contains the yaml-editor itself, which will start a vim in the docker container. It uses a lot of funky vimscript that makes playing with it easy and useful. You can choose which frameworks you want to test and see the output in a grid of vim windows. Especially when writing a parser it is extremely helpful to have all the test cases and be able to play around with your own examples to see how they are handled. YAML TEST MATRIX I was curious to see how the different frameworks handle the test cases, so, using the test suite and the docker image, I wrote some code that runs the tests, manipulates the output to compare it with the expected output, and created a matrix view. You can find the latest build at CONTRIBUTORS Ingy dot Net Ingy is one of the creators of YAML. In 2016 he started the YAML Test Suite and the YAML Editor. He also made useful suggestions on the class hierarchy of YAML::PP. Felix "flyx" Krause Felix answered countless questions about the YAML Specification. SEE ALSO YAML YAML::XS YAML::Syck YAML::Tiny YAML::PP::LibYAML YAML::LibYAML::API YAML::Tidy SPONSORS The Perl Foundation sponsored this project (and the YAML Test Suite) with a grant of 2500 USD in 2017-2018. COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 2017-2022 by Tina Muller This library is free software and may be distributed under the same terms as perl itself. perl v5.38.2 2024-02-14 YAML::PP(3)