Show HN: Flatito, grep for YAML and JSON files

65 points by ceritium 1 year ago | 22 comments
It is a kind of grep for YAML and JSON files. It allows you to search for a key and get the value and the line number where it is located.

I created this tool because I sometimes struggle to find specific keys in typical i18n rails yamls. In the views, you don't always have the whole key, but it is extrapolated from the context. I am sure there are other use cases; I hope you find it useful.

Cheers!

  • ratrocket 1 year ago
    This looks cool!

    It doesn't do quite the same thing, but a tool I've had good luck with for quick-n-dirty grepping of JSON is gron:

    https://github.com/tomnomnom/gron

    (which I'm sure I learned about from a thread like this on HN...)

    It sort of "flattens out" your JSON to allow you to do whatever you want to it (grepping, for one thing!). Then you can even turn gron's output back into JSON with `ungron`.

    Maybe someone will find it a useful toolbox addition, much like the Flatito looks to be!

    • dimatura 1 year ago
      So I see that the name is derived from an esperanto word (apparently meaning "flatter") but in spanish it would also mean a small burp ("flato" being an informal term for burp). Which I still like as a name ;)
      • elondaits 1 year ago
        In Argentina a “flato” is a flatulence, and flatito would mean a little fart.
        • selimnairb 1 year ago
          My brain saw “fellatio” at first.
          • crorella 1 year ago
            Flatito means “little burp” in Chilean Spanish
          • eddd-ddde 1 year ago
            It's funny being a native Spanish speaker, and seeing other Spanish speakers talk about words you have never ever heard of before.
            • dimatura 1 year ago
              Seems like it's less universal than I thought, and has other meanings (but related to flatulence) in other countries than my own.
            • ceritium 1 year ago
              Hi! Author here! I am spanish, flato means that, but it's also that pain in the side of the belly when you are running.
              • dimatura 1 year ago
                ha, that's funny. Now that you mention it I've heard this. In my case I was referring to Chilean spanish.
                • autoexec 1 year ago
                  Is there an English word for that?
                  • montag 1 year ago
                    Colloquially just sideache, AFAIK.
              • al_borland 1 year ago
                I usually have to use JMESPath queries semi-regularly. Every time I do it feels like I'm starting over for the first time. I'd love something that made more sense to me, but in most cases I'm stuck with what I have due to restrictions on what I can use at work.
                • mutant 1 year ago
                  This till doesn't give any context about the keys context, what's the full path of the key? That's critically important.
                  • gxonatano 1 year ago
                    This is the kind of thing Nushell is already really good at.
                    • account-5 1 year ago
                      Is this different from yq?
                      • ceritium 1 year ago
                        Hi, I didn't know about yq until now; as far as I can see, it seems to allow complex queries and manipulations and handle more formats. Flatito, on the contrary, only handles YAML and JSON. It can look in a whole directory, and most importantly for me, it shows the line number needed to locate the value.
                      • Yasuraka 1 year ago
                        What I often use to just get the full key paths is yq (https://github.com/mikefarah/yq), piping into grep when necessary

                          yq -o=props <file>
                        e.g.

                          kind = Ingress
  metadata.name = hello
  spec.rules.0.host = localhost
  spec.rules.0.http.paths.0.pathType = ImplementationSpecific
  spec.rules.0.http.paths.0.backend.service.name = hello
  spec.rules.0.http.paths.0.backend.service.port.number = 80
                        The one drawback I've encountered so far are multi-doc files - yq can certainly handle those, but you have to script the loop yourself.
                      • llimllib 1 year ago
                        related project, gron: https://github.com/tomnomnom/gron

                            ▶ gron "https://api.github.com/repos/tomnomnom/gron/commits?per_page=1" | fgrep "commit.author"
    json[0].commit.author = {};
    json[0].commit.author.date = "2016-07-02T10:51:21Z";
    json[0].commit.author.email = "mail@tomnomnom.com";
    json[0].commit.author.name = "Tom Hudson";
                        • wewtyflakes 1 year ago
                          Looks neat, but what happens if a JSON key has a value like "foo.bar" or "foo[0]", etc. Does the textual response escape them?
                          • matja 1 year ago
                            Yes:

                                json = {};
    json["foo.bar"] = true;
    json["foo[0]"] = true;
                          • 1 year ago