A single quote yields triple quotes in YAML output

[antonalekseev]

For example, if I want to use an environment variable as a part of the value. The desirable result would be foo: '/usr/local/bin/zsh'

❯ echo $SHELL
/usr/local/bin/zsh
❯ echo ""|dasel put string -p yaml 'foo' "'$SHELL'"
foo: '''/usr/local/bin/zsh'''

Escaping doesn't help

❯ echo ""|dasel put string -p yaml 'foo' "\'$SHELL\'"
foo: \'/usr/local/bin/zsh\'

Using just single quotes predictably prevents variable expansion

❯ echo ""|dasel put string -p yaml 'foo' '$SHELL'
foo: $SHELL

❯ dasel --version
dasel version 1.22.1

[TomWright]

This should do the job:

echo ""|dasel put string -p yaml 'foo' "$SHELL"

There final argument will be the string value used. Using the single quotes is redundant and is being considered part of the value itself

[antonalekseev]

Hey Tom, thanks both for the swift response and the great tool we all now have in our toolboxes.

Actually, the aforementioned example was a simplified version of a problem that bothers me.

❯ export JOB_NAME=foo ; echo"" | dasel put object -p yaml -t string -t string "\.\.$JOB_NAME\.rules.rules.[]" if="$JOB_NAME != \"$JOB_NAME\" && \$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == \"trigger\"" when="never"
.foo.rules:
  rules:
  - if: foo != "foo" && $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "trigger"
    when: never

In GitLab CI docs, strings that contain special characters are usually enclosed in a single quotes ('foo != "foo" && $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "trigger"', but according to the YAML spec only strings that start with a special character should be. So dasel probably knows better when to quote:

❯ export JOB_NAME=foo ; echo "" | dasel put string -p yaml 'name' "&$JOB_NAME"
name: '&foo'