yaml-cpp is a YAML parser and emitter in C matching the YAML 1.2 spec.

See Tutorial and How to Emit YAML for reference. For the old API (until 0.5.0), see How To Parse A Document.

If you find a bug, post an issue! If you have questions about how to use yaml-cpp, please post it on http://stackoverflow.com and tag it yaml-cpp.

yaml-cpp uses CMake to support cross-platform building. Install CMake (Resources -> Download) before proceeding. The basic steps to build are:

Note: If you don't use the provided installer for your platform, make sure that you add CMake's bin folder to your path.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake [-G generator] [-DYAML_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=on|OFF] ..

• The generator option is the build system you'd like to use. Run cmake without arguments to see a full list of available generators.

  • On Windows, you might use "Visual Studio 12 2013" (VS 2013 32-bits), or "Visual Studio 14 2015 Win64" (VS 2015 64-bits).
  • On OS X, you might use "Xcode".
  • On a UNIX-like system, omit the option (for a Makefile).

• yaml-cpp builds a static library by default, you may want to build a shared library by specifying -DYAML_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON.

• Debug mode of the GNU standard C library can be used when both yaml-cpp and client code is compiled with the _GLIBCXX_DEBUG flag (e.g. by calling CMake with -D CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_DEBUG='-g -D_GLIBCXX_DEBUG' option).

  Note that for yaml-cpp unit tests to run successfully, the GoogleTest library also must be built with this flag, i.e. the system one cannot be used (the YAML_USE_SYSTEM_GTEST CMake option must be OFF, which is the default).

• For more options on customizing the build, see the CMakeLists.txt file.

• The command you'll need to run depends on the generator you chose earlier.

Note: To clean up, just remove the build directory.

You can use for example FetchContent :

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
  yaml-cpp
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/jbeder/yaml-cpp.git
  GIT_TAG <tag_name> # Can be a tag (yaml-cpp-x.x.x), a commit hash, or a branch name (master)
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(yaml-cpp)

target_link_libraries(YOUR_LIBRARY PUBLIC yaml-cpp::yaml-cpp) # The library or executable that require yaml-cpp library

yaml-cpp 0.6.0 released! This release requires C 11, and no longer depends on Boost.

yaml-cpp 0.3.0 is still available if you want the old API.

The old API will continue to be supported, and will still receive bugfixes! The 0.3.x and 0.4.x versions will be old API releases, and 0.5.x and above will all be new API releases.

The autogenerated API reference is hosted on CodeDocs

The following projects are not officially supported:

• Qt wrapper
• UnrealEngine Wrapper