Question: How to use environment variables in square brackets

[niharbabu99]

YQ version: version 4.16.1
Platform: ubuntu 18.04

My YML looks like Below:
customers :

• name: cust1
  phoneNumber: 123
  files: ["/home/storage/cust1-profile.jpg","/home/storage/cust1-signature.jpg"]

I am trying to add a new customer at the runtime using a environment variable. I use the below command

mycust="cust2" yq eval '.jobs += {"name": env(mycust), "files": "["/home/folder + env(mycust) + -profile.jpg + ", "/home/folder + env(mycust) + -signature.jpg + "]", "number": 1234567}' -i sample.yml

But the result is not what I expected, it looks something like below

customers :

• name: cust1
  phoneNumber: 123
  files: ["/home/storage/cust1-profile.jpg","/home/storage/cust1-signature.jpg"]
• name: cust2
  files: '["/home/folder + env(mycust) + -profile.jpg + ", "/home/folder + env(mycust) + -signature.jpg + "]'
  number: 1234567

can someone help me to solve this problem.

Thanks in advance.

[mikefarah]

That's because the files value is all wrapped in a string, try this instead:

mycust="cust2" yq eval '.jobs += {
   "name": env(mycust), 
    "files": [  
                  "/home/folder" + env(mycust) + "-profile.jpg", 
                  "/home/folder" + env(mycust) + "-signature.jpg"  
               ], 
    "number": 1234567
}' -i sample.yaml

[mikefarah]

I'm sorry I don't know what you mean? isn't the output in 'similar to below' what you already had?

Are you aware that in yaml:

files: ["/home/storage/cust1-profile.jpg","/home/storage/cust1-signature.jpg"]

and

files: 
   - "/home/storage/cust1-profile.jpg"
   - "/home/storage/cust1-signature.jpg"

are the same?

[niharbabu99]

Yes I am aware But it is failing when my github action trying to parse the file.

My GitHub action file looks like below

name: Validate Changes for pipeline

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
    paths:
      - ci/**
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master
    paths:
      - ci/**

  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  validate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: validate
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          path: ea-uaa-deployment
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          repository: smarsh/delivery-common-tasks
          token: ${{ secrets.ACCESS_TOKEN }}
          path: delivery-common-tasks
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          repository: smarsh/ea-e2e-smoke
          token: ${{ secrets.ACCESS_TOKEN }}
          path: smoke-tests
      - name: Validate bny_ap_southeast_prod
        uses: smarsh/validate-concourse-pipeline-action@development
        env:
          PIPELINE_CONFIG: ci/deploy_uaa.yml
          HANDLEBARS: true
          ENVIRONMENT_NAME: bny_ap_southeast_prod
          VAR_FILES: '["ci/vars/bny_ap_southeast_prod.yml", "ci/vars/bny_ap_southeast_prod_template_vars.yml"]'
          MULTI_REPO: true
          PIPELINE_REPOSITORY: ea-uaa-deployment

When I am adding the new entry as per below

      - name: Validate test1
        uses: smarsh/validate-concourse-pipeline-action@development
        env:
          PIPELINE_CONFIG: ci/deploy_uaa.yml
          HANDLEBARS: true
          ENVIRONMENT_NAME: bny_ap_southeast_prod
          VAR_FILES: '["ci/vars/file1.yml", "ci/vars/file2.yml"]'
          MULTI_REPO: true
          PIPELINE_REPOSITORY: ea-uaa-deployment

if I am adding as per below, git action is failing with the error "A sequence was not expected"

      - name: Validate test1
        uses: smarsh/validate-concourse-pipeline-action@development
        env:
          PIPELINE_CONFIG: ci/deploy_uaa.yml
          HANDLEBARS: true
          ENVIRONMENT_NAME: bny_ap_southeast_prod
          VAR_FILES: 
             - "ci/vars/file1.yml"
             - "ci/vars/file2.yml"
          MULTI_REPO: true
          PIPELINE_REPOSITORY: ea-uaa-deployment

[mikefarah]

Oh II see - VAR_FILES is wrapped in single quotes, it's an encoded array! okay try this:

mycust="cust2" yq eval '.jobs += {
   "name": env(mycust), 
    "files": ([  
                  "/home/folder" + env(mycust) + "-profile.jpg", 
                  "/home/folder" + env(mycust) + "-signature.jpg"  
               ] | @json), 
    "number": 1234567
}' -i sample.yaml

(note that I'm piping the array through @json to encode it as a string:

jobs:
  - name: cust2
    files: '["/home/foldercust2-profile.jpg","/home/foldercust2-signature.jpg"]'
    number: 1234567

[niharbabu99]

AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!! Thanks @mikefarah That works and really helpful

[mikefarah]

Thanks @niharbabu99 - feeling the love 👍🏼