mikefarah/yq · error

expected to find one 'key' entry but found %v in position %v

Error message

expected to find one 'key' entry but found %v in position %v

What it means

fromEntries→parseEntry traverses each entry map for its 'key' field with auto-creation disabled, and expects exactly one result. The traversal returned a different count (%v) for the entry at position %v — usually the entry is missing 'key' entirely, or contains a nested 'key' collection producing multiple matches.

Source

Thrown at pkg/yqlib/operator_entries.go:72

		default:
			if candidate.Tag != "!!null" {
				return Context{}, fmt.Errorf("%v has no keys", candidate.Tag)
			}
		}
	}

	return context.ChildContext(results), nil
}

func parseEntry(candidateNode *CandidateNode, position int) (*CandidateNode, *CandidateNode, error) {
	prefs := traversePreferences{DontAutoCreate: true}

	keyResults, err := traverseMap(Context{}, candidateNode, createStringScalarNode("key"), prefs, false)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, nil, err
	} else if keyResults.Len() != 1 {
		return nil, nil, fmt.Errorf("expected to find one 'key' entry but found %v in position %v", keyResults.Len(), position)
	}

	valueResults, err := traverseMap(Context{}, candidateNode, createStringScalarNode("value"), prefs, false)

	if err != nil {
		return nil, nil, err
	} else if valueResults.Len() != 1 {
		return nil, nil, fmt.Errorf("expected to find one 'value' entry but found %v in position %v", valueResults.Len(), position)
	}

	return keyResults.Front().Value.(*CandidateNode), valueResults.Front().Value.(*CandidateNode), nil

}

func fromEntries(candidateNode *CandidateNode) (*CandidateNode, error) {
	var node = candidateNode.CopyWithoutContent()

	var contents = candidateNode.Content

View on GitHub (pinned to 8b5af0694b)

Solutions

1. Ensure every entry from to_entries keeps both 'key' and 'value' fields
2. Do not drop or rename 'key' when transforming entries before from_entries
3. Guard: entries | map(select(has("key"))) | from_entries

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at pkg/yqlib/operator_entries.go:72 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/61303f9ab0b581ba. Report an issue: GitHub.