Sort document by key

[wake42]

Please describe your feature request.
I wish I could use yq to sort a multidocument file based on a key.

Describe the solution you'd like
Given a file

name: Beta
data:
  rank: bla bla
---
name: Alfa
data:
  rank: bla bla
---
name: Gamma
data:
  rank: bla bla

I would like to sort the order of the included yaml document given a key, so that the above, sorted by key .name would become

name: Alfa
data:
  rank: bla bla
---
name: Beta
data:
  rank: bla bla
---
name: Gamma
data:
  rank: bla bla

[mikefarah]

This can now be done with 4.16.1 with the new sort_by operator. This operator sorts arrays, so you first need to put the docs into an array, sort, then split them out again:

yq ea '[.] | sort_by(.name) | .[] | splitDoc' file.yaml

[Zebradil]

Initial comment

The suggestion doesn't seem to work:

cat << EOF | yq '[.] | sort_by(.name) | .[] | splitDoc'
name: Beta
data:
  rank: bla bla
---
name: Alfa
data:
  rank: bla bla
---
name: Gamma
data:
  rank: bla bla
EOF
name: Beta
data:
  rank: bla bla
name: Alfa
data:
  rank: bla bla
name: Gamma
data:
  rank: bla bla

yq (https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/) version 4.21.1

My bad, eval-all is important — it works.

[eripa]

Hello @mikefarah,

sorry for bringing this thread back from the dead. But is it possible to have second (and third etc) key sorting like below. I.e. first sort all documents on X, but for if the value is the same, use the second key Y to sort within those?

i.e.

name: Beta
other: Epsilon
---
name: Alfa
other: Gamma
---
name: Beta
other: Delta

result (Beta Delta comes before Beta Epsilon):

name: Alfa
other: Gamma
---
name: Beta
other: Delta
---
name: Beta
other: Epsilon

Thanks a lot 🙏

[mikefarah]

Not yet - but that would be good to add; feel free to raise a separate issue so I can track it :)