Escaping colons in YAML

Question

Does anyone know how to escape colons in YAML? The key in my yml is the domain with port number, but the yml file isn't working with this setup:

###BEGIN
production:
### THIS IS THE ONE I'm HAVING TROUBLE WITH ###
8.11.32.120:8000: GoogleMapsKeyforThisDomain
exampledomain.com: GoogleMapsAPIKeyforThatDomain

development:
 GoogleMapsAPIKeyforDevelopmentDomain
###END

I'm using a google maps plugin called YM4R that uses a .yml file to select the different Google Maps API key depending on where my app is being hosted...

So, I'm trying to make 8.11.32.120:8000 the key. Any idea how to do this? (It's in the gmaps_api_key.yml file if you care)

Does double-quoting the whole string (ie: `"8.11.32.120:8000: GoogleMapsKeyforThisDomain"`) work as per [this StackOverflow answer](http://stackoverflow.com/q/11301650/567863)? — Paul Fioravanti, Feb 14 '13 at 11:04
WOrks with quotes, are you telling me that is the only way to escape it? — , Feb 14 '13 at 11:09
There's info out there about [using double-quotes to escape colons in values](http://stackoverflow.com/q/8783705/567863), but I haven't seen anything specifically to do with escaping colons in keys apart from [a Ruby Forum post where this same question was asked back in 2007](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/127343), where the advice there was also to just double-quote the key. So, I guess you can either go with double quoting just the key, or both the key and value. — Paul Fioravanti, Feb 14 '13 at 11:17

Kyri Elia · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-02T11:38:13.317

55

You'll need to put quotes around the key you're having trouble with. I.e.:

"8.11.32.120:8000": GoogleMapsKeyforThisDomain

edited Feb 02 '17 at 11:38

answered Feb 14 '13 at 11:01

Kyri Elia

997
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WOrks with quotes, can't we do it any other way? – Feb 14 '13 at 11:10
I haven't come across any other way of doing it, sorry. – Kyri Elia Feb 14 '13 at 11:25
6

I've had success with HTML entities (e.g. "&colon;") – Dr1Ku Nov 19 '13 at 13:49
3

Just out of curiosity: **Why** would you want another way? – kako-nawao Mar 14 '15 at 13:02
1

Because this doesn't work: `- sed -i "s/driver: .*/driver: pdo_$DB/" etc/config.yaml` – andig Mar 22 '19 at 11:02

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 22 '19 at 18:58

10

To answer a comment another way for list items like:

- sed -i "s/driver: .*/driver: pdo_$DB/" etc/config.yaml

is to write them as:

- >-
  sed -i "s/driver: .*/driver: pdo_$DB/" etc/config.yaml

or as:

- 'sed -i "s/driver: .*/driver: pdo_$DB/" etc/config.yaml'

answered Jun 22 '19 at 18:58

K. Frank

1,325
1
10
19

For those who are wondering like I was: the `>` indicates a folded scalar, which means that characters that are otherwise special yaml characters are not interpreted. The `-` is a chomp control modifier, indicating that eventual newlines in a `>` block should be stripped. – josch Sep 21 '22 at 10:06

Escaping colons in YAML

2 Answers2

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