How to shuffle array with yq

Question

There is documentation explaining how to sort an array using yq https://mikefarah.gitbook.io/yq/operators/sort

But it'd like to shuffle (random sorting)

Given an example

• a: banana
• a: cat
• a: apple

i'd like to sort it randomly yq 'sort_by(RANDOM)' sample.yml

Any ideas?

I'd tried the examples in the official documentation https://mikefarah.gitbook.io/yq/operators/sort

Answer 1

Unfortunally, yq does not provide a shuffle command.

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A workaround, until your github issue is being worked on, could by to use the bash build-in shuf :

1. Export Bash variable with yq 's output piped to shuf
2. Use yq 's env to insert the bash variable into the desired place

export shuffled=$(yq e '.MyData' input | shuf)
yq e '.MyData |= env(shuffled)' input

Will output a pesuedo random order of the MyData array