Reorder keys in a specific order

[sytone]

I know I can sort keys but is there a way to reorder the keys in a specific way?

I am working with markdown files with yaml front matter and was wondering if I can process the file and provide a specific ordering of the keys in the header. Mine are a bit more complect but the below gives a idea of what I want.

From this:

---
area: yard
version: 3
notetype: ideas
tags:
 - tag1
 - tag2
next-review: 2023-11-01
---

to this:

---
notetype: ideas
version: 3
tags:
 - tag1
 - tag2
area: yard
next-review: 2023-11-01
---

[mikefarah]

Yep, you can use the pick operator: https://mikefarah.gitbook.io/yq/operators/pick#pick-keys-from-map

[Aubermean]

Hi @mikefarah, how can I not skip non existent keys?

[Aubermean]

At the moment this is my solution:

yq eval-all '. | 
pick(["apiVersion", "kind", "metadata", "spec"])' kustomization.yaml | 
yq eval-all 'select(fileIndex == 0) * select(fileIndex == 1)' - kustomization.yaml | 
awk '!/^#/ || !seen[$0]++

The last awk is to prevent duplicated comment lines remaining after the merge. Maybe there's a cleaner way? Thanks!

[mikefarah]

You can do it by creating an array of the keys, with dupes, then de-dupe using unique:

yq 'pick( (["notetype"] + keys) | unique)' examples/data1.yaml