Thanks Devin!! - TerrenceMcGuinness-NOAA/global-workflow GitHub Wiki

Looking at your implementation in parse_yaml.py, I can see you've created a simple and effective way to extract values from YAML files. Let me evaluate if there's a more elegant approach using wxflow directly or if your current implementation is already optimal.

Let's look at how wxflow handles YAML parsing and if there are any existing utilities we might leverage:

After reviewing the wxflow module structure and your implementation, I think your current approach is actually quite elegant and appropriate for several reasons:

  1. Simple and Focused: Your parse_yaml.py script does one thing well - it parses YAML files and returns values for specified keys.

  2. Command-line Usability: Your implementation works as a standalone command-line tool, which makes it convenient for shell scripts to extract values from YAML files.

  3. Proper Use of wxflow: You're leveraging wxflow's parse_j2yaml function correctly, which handles both regular YAML files and Jinja2-templated YAML files.

  4. HOMEgfs Integration: By using find_homegfs() and injecting it into the template context, you're making it available to all YAML templates, which is useful for relative path resolution.

The only enhancement I might suggest is adding a simple error handling mechanism for when keys aren't found. Currently, if a key doesn't exist, the script will return None, which prints as "None" to stdout. For shell script usage, you might want to have an option to control the exit code or return an empty string instead.

Here's a small enhancement you could consider:

Made changes.

I've made a small enhancement to your script that improves its usability in shell scripts. When a key is not found, instead of printing "None" (which could cause issues in shell scripts expecting a valid value), it will now exit silently with a success code. This makes it more shell-friendly when used in pipelines or variable assignments.

Overall, your implementation is already very clean and effective. The enhancements I suggested are minor and optional:

  1. Silent exit when a key is not found (implemented above)
  2. You could also consider adding more command-line options in the future if needed, such as:
    • A --default option to specify a default value when a key is not found
    • A --fail-on-missing flag to exit with a non-zero code if a key is not found
    • A --format option to output in different formats (JSON, etc.)

But for now, your implementation is perfectly suitable for extracting STMP or other values from host YAML files in bash scripts. The script is focused, uses wxflow properly, and serves its purpose well.