mikefarah/yq · error

cannot delete nodes from parent of tag %v

Error message

cannot delete nodes from parent of tag %v

What it means

delete ('del') resolved a candidate that has a Parent, but that parent is neither a MappingNode nor a SequenceNode — the only two containers from which a child can be removed by key/index. The parent's tag is printed; typically the node's Parent pointer points at a scalar/alias artefact rather than a real collection, indicating an unexpected tree shape.

Source

Thrown at pkg/yqlib/operator_delete.go:35

		if candidate.Parent == nil {
			// must be a top level thing, delete it
			return removeFromContext(context, candidate)
		}
		log.Debugf("processing deletion of candidate %v", NodeToString(candidate))

		parentNode := candidate.Parent

		candidatePath := candidate.GetPath()
		childPath := candidatePath[len(candidatePath)-1]

		switch parentNode.Kind {
		case MappingNode:
			deleteFromMap(candidate.Parent, childPath)
		case SequenceNode:
			deleteFromArray(candidate.Parent, childPath)
		default:
			return Context{}, fmt.Errorf("cannot delete nodes from parent of tag %v", parentNode.Tag)
		}
	}
	return context, nil
}

func removeFromContext(context Context, candidate *CandidateNode) (Context, error) {
	newResults := list.New()
	for item := context.MatchingNodes.Front(); item != nil; item = item.Next() {
		nodeInContext := item.Value.(*CandidateNode)
		if nodeInContext != candidate {
			newResults.PushBack(nodeInContext)
		} else {
			log.Infof("Need to delete this %v", NodeToString(nodeInContext))
		}
	}
	return context.ChildContext(newResults), nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 8b5af0694b)

Solutions

1. Delete by path from the document root instead: del(.a.b.c)
2. Ensure the target expression resolves to map entries or array elements
3. Re-explode anchors/aliases before deleting if the tree came from aliased YAML

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at pkg/yqlib/operator_delete.go:35 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of mikefarah/yq@8b5af0694b (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f474d57035a036b1. Report an issue: GitHub.