YAML Syntax

Topics

• YAML Syntax
  • Basics
  • Gotchas

Basics

All YAML files should begin with --- .

All members of a list are lines beginning at the same indentation level starting with a - (a dash and a space):

---
# A list of tasty fruits
- Apple
- Orange
- Strawberry
- Mango

Dictionaries can also be represented in an abbreviated form if you really want to:

---
{ name: MEM, job: Dev, skill: delta }

Ansible doesnt really use these too much, but you can also specify a boolean value(true/false) in several forms:

---
create_key: yes
needs_agent: no
knows_oop: True
likes_emacs: TRUE
uses_cvs: false

Gotchas

While YAML is generally friendly, the following is going to result in a YAML syntax error:

foo: somebody said I should put a colon here: so I did

You wil want to quote any hash values using colons:

foo: "someone said i should put a colon: so i did"

Further, Ansible uses “{{var}}” for variables. If a value after a colon starts with a “{” , YAML will think it is a dictionary, so you must quote it:

foo: "{{ varialbe }}"