Trying to get the value of an object that is up the path from a searched-for array element value

[steve-nay-sage]

I've tried several variations of commands to do this, but all without success. I tried to get chatGPT to assist me, but it's so bad with yq that it's almost laughable. There is some underlying concept here that eludes me. I've tried using contains and select and has and piping to path etc. but I'm just not getting it. Help would really be appreciated!

Here is the top part of the actual file that I'm working with. In the last pages array there is an element with a value that contains "general-ledger.statistical-account.yaml" My script gets that value as input (or the equivalent from another element), so that's what I have to search with. What I'd like to be able to find is the value of the group object above that array element, which in this example is "General Ledger". I just can't put the yq pieces together in the right way to make that happen.

- page: index.mdx

- group: Get Started
  page: developer-portal/getting-started/index.mdx
  expanded: false
  pages:
    - label: Quick Start
      page: developer-portal/getting-started/quick-start.mdx


- group: API References
  page: openapi/index.md
  expanded: true
  pages:

    - group: Company Configuration
      page: openapi/index-company.md
      expanded: false
      selectFirstItemOnExpand: false
      pages:
        - page: openapi/co/company-config-attachment.yaml #uncertified
        - page: openapi/co/company-config-folder.yaml #uncertified
        - group: Dimensions
          expanded: false
          selectFirstItemOnExpand: false
          pages:
            - page: openapi/co/company-config-class.yaml
            - page: openapi/co/company-config-contact.yaml #uncertified
            - page: openapi/co/company-config-department.yaml
            - page: openapi/co/company-config-entity.yaml #uncertified
            - page: openapi/co/company-config-location.yaml
        - page: openapi/co/company-config-document-sequence.yaml
        - page: openapi/co/company-config-email-template.yaml #uncertified

    - group: General Ledger
      page: openapi/index-gl.md
      expanded: false
      selectFirstItemOnExpand: false
      pages:
        - page: openapi/gl/general-ledger.account.yaml
        - page: openapi/gl/general-ledger.statistical-account.yaml
        - page: openapi/gl/general-ledger-account-group.yaml #uncertified
        - page: openapi/gl/general-ledger-account-group-purpose.yaml

[steve-nay-sage]

I figured out a way to do this, but it's probably not the most elegant. I get the path of where the matching element was found and read that into an array. I then use the values from the array to create the path to the group value that I need. I know some of the values for that path so in my use case I only needed to use the third path element. $sidebarFile is the value that I'm trying to find in the sidebars.yaml file.

    readarray -t pathArray < <(./yq ".. | select(. == \"$sidebarFile\") | path" sidebars.yaml | sed 's/- //')
    sidebarGroup=$(./yq ".[6].pages.[${pathArray[2]}].group" sidebars.yaml)

[mikefarah]

This was a little tricky:

yq '.. | select( has("group") and (.pages[].page | match("general-ledger.statistical-account.yaml"))) | .group' data1.yaml
General Ledger

Explanation:

• .. matches all nodes
• then we want to select all nodes that:
  • has("group"), has a child with a key 'group'; and
  • .pages[].page | match("general-ledger.statistical-account.yaml") has a page that matches the general-ledger..
• from that node, we read the 'group' key to get the result

[steve-nay-sage]

It's been over a year, but I found this page again while I was seeking a cleaner answer than what I had originally come up with. @mikefarah I hadn't seen the answer that you posted in June of 2024 until now. Thank you for finding a clean way to do this, and for the explanation.