Data Parsing Functions

These helpers are most useful when a task output is still a serialized string and you want to treat it like structured data in later expressions.

fromJson()

Parses a JSON string into an object so you can access its fields with dot or bracket notation:

{{ fromJson(outputs.myTask.value).name }}
{{ fromJson('[1, 2, 3]')[0] }}

Use fromJson() when a task output arrives as a serialized JSON string rather than a structured object. To go the other direction, use the toJson filter.

fromIon()

Use fromIon() when a previous task or serializer produces ION rather than JSON. fromIon() accepts both text ION strings and binary ION byte arrays, so it works correctly with read() regardless of the storage format.

Access a field from the first row:

{{ fromIon(read(outputs.serialize.uri)).someField }}

Return all rows as a list with allRows=true:

{{ fromIon(read(outputs.transform.uri), allRows=true) }}

Count rows:

{{ fromIon(read(outputs.query.uri), allRows=true) | length }}

yaml()

Parses a YAML string into an object so you can access its fields with dot or array notation:

{{ yaml('foo: [666, 1, 2]').foo[0] }}

yaml() is available both as a function and as a filter ({{ value | yaml }}). Use the function form when you are working with a raw YAML string literal or a variable containing YAML text. See the yaml filter for additional options including indent and nindent for template formatting.