explode

Sometimes you need to drop some data onto a server.

YAML and JSON are both great for that, except that they suck to be consumed in shell scripts. jq is an excellent tool for consuming parts of a JSON file in a shell script, but similar to find it has its own syntax and semantics that need to be learned.

Shell scripts are already great at consuming text files and processing directory trees, and if you need to do fancy things and you’re doing them in shell, you probably have already learned all of the finer points of find.

explode will take a JSON or a YAML file and turn it into a directory structure with simple text files containing the values. Dictionary keys become directories. Lists become directories named for the list index. Booleans are rendered as True or False. There is no support for anything else.