How to update the values for all keys matching a given pattern using yq?

Question

I have a yaml file looks like

part1:
  name: tom
  some_field: true
part2:
  name: jerry
  other_field: true

and I would like to change the value of all keys that end with field into false, that is, converting the previous YAML file into

part1:
  name: tom
  some_field: false
part2:
  name: jerry
  other_field: false

Not sure how to do that yq

pmf · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-31 05:07:30Z

1

Which implementation of yq are you targetting?

With mikefarah/yq (>= 4.0), you can use a globbing asterisk (and drop e / eval since v4.18):

yq e '.[].*field = false' file.yaml

With kislyuk/yq (jq >= 1.6), use endswith to select, and with_entries to update:

yq -y '.[] |= with_entries(select(.key | endswith("field")).value = false)' file.yaml

Both output:

part1:
  name: tom
  some_field: false
part2:
  name: jerry
  other_field: false

Instead of unconditionally assigning false, you also might want to consider flipping a boolean by changing = false to |= not.

edited Jul 31 at 5:07

answered Jul 31 at 3:35

pmf

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2 Comments

xis Jul 31 at 19:57

I am using Go implementation of yq. The first solution works perfectly. Just wondering if part1 and part2 are not sibilings, but have different depths?

pmf Jul 31 at 20:05

For arbitrary positions, use the recursive descent operator ... With mikefarah/yq, this could be yq '(.. | select(key == "*field")) = false' (or … |= not)

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