Parse YAML File in Python – How to Guide

If your YAML file looks like this:

# tree format
treeroot:
    branch1:
        name: Node 1
        branch1-1:
            name: Node 1-1
    branch2:
        name: Node 2
        branch2-1:
            name: Node 2-1

And you've installed PyYAML like this:

pip install PyYAML

And the Python code looks like this:

import yaml
with open('tree.yaml') as f:
    # use safe_load instead load
    dataMap = yaml.safe_load(f)

The variable dataMap now contains a dictionary with the tree data. If you print dataMap using PrettyPrint, you will get something like:

{
    'treeroot': {
        'branch1': {
            'branch1-1': {
                'name': 'Node 1-1'
            },
            'name': 'Node 1'
        },
        'branch2': {
            'branch2-1': {
                'name': 'Node 2-1'
            },
            'name': 'Node 2'
        }
    }
}

So, now we have seen how to get data into our Python program. Saving data is just as easy:

with open('newtree.yaml', "w") as f:
    yaml.dump(dataMap, f)

You have a dictionary, and now you have to convert it to a Python object:

class Struct:
    def __init__(self, **entries): 
        self.__dict__.update(entries)

Then you can use:

>>> args = your YAML dictionary
>>> s = Struct(**args)
>>> s
<__main__.Struct instance at 0x01D6A738>
>>> s...

and follow "Convert Python dict to object".

For more information you can look at pyyaml.org and this.

Since PyYAML's yaml.load() function parses YAML documents to native Python data structures, you can just access items by key or index. Using the example from the question you linked:

import yaml
with open('tree.yaml', 'r') as f:
    doc = yaml.load(f)

To access branch1 text you would use:

txt = doc["treeroot"]["branch1"]
print txt
"branch1 text"

because, in your YAML document, the value of the branch1 key is under the treeroot key.