YAML anchors don't work with lists

Help
1

Hi all,
I tried to set up anchoring while declaring tests as recommended here: Add tests to your DAG | dbt Developer Hub

But i can’t figure out how it should work. I have this example:

 columns: &columns
   - '"date"'
 models:
   - name: ga_data
     tests: 
       - not_null:
           column_name: *columns

But what i get is an error message:

 001003 (42000): SQL compilation error:
 syntax error line 3 at position 6 unexpected '['.

This is the SQL that is put into target/schema_test:

select count(*)
from XXXXXX.GOOGLE_ANALYTICS.ga_data
where ['"date"'] is null

Can you help me out?
Ultimately, I want to have an easy way of testing ALL columns in a model for not_null without have to retype everything for each column.

1 Like
2

Hi @germanguy :wave:

Anchors can only be used for dictionaries, whereas here you’re using it for a list — check out this related issue on the Jinja library.

3

Hi claire, thanks for your help.
Did you post the correct link? This leads to an issues regarding “merge arrays” in the yaml github repo, which actually shows lists instead of dictionaries.
I found a link that explains it, https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_advanced_syntax.html

4

Yep! The linked issue is a request for the functionality you’re trying to use, and the response basically being like “nah this won’t happen”

5

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