Preserve more of the orignal YAML formatting.

[Joshua-Beatty]

⚠️ Please verify that this feature request has NOT been suggested before.

• I checked and didn't find similar feature request

🏷️ Feature Request Type

Other

🔖 Feature description

Currently dockge uses the yaml npm library and converts the yaml to js using the doc.toJS() to generate a JSON config method which then is used to create a new document and stringifies that. In essence it does:

const config = parseDocument(yamlString).toJS()
yamlString = new Document(config()).toString()

It does this so the config can be modified so the yaml can be regenerated. (It does do some other work to maintain comments)

Ideally the original YAML should be modified as little as possible.

For example, this:

services:
  nginx:
    image: nginx:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    healthcheck:
      test: [ "CMD", "wget", "--spider", "http://127.0.0.1:41234/healthz" ]
    environment:
      PORT: ${APP_PORT}
      KEY: 'nnnnnnnnnnnn'
      KEY2: nnnnnnnnnnnn
      EXAMPLE2: >
        Multi Line
        String

Gets turned into:

services:
  nginx:
    image: nginx:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    healthcheck:
      test:
        - CMD
        - wget
        - --spider
        - http://127.0.0.1:41234/healthz
    environment:
      PORT: ${APP_PORT}
      KEY: nnnnnnnnnnnn
      KEY2: nnnnnnnnnnnn
      EXAMPLE2: |
        Multi Line String

✔️ Solution

In a perfect world as little of the YAML would get modified little as possible. Theoretically this is possible by generating a CST with the yaml library, then modifying the CST directly only changing the nodes that are directly changed. This though I do not think is super feasible, or at least is too difficult for me to attempt. I did consider trying to do this a little, and have some example code in case anyone is interested.

❓ Alternatives

Alternatively there are two other solutions that I have thought of:

• Only regenerate the YAML if the user actually modifies it using the UI, otherwise keep it exactly as it is on disk.
  • Currently the YAML is regenerated immediately on page load which removes any formatting from the file on disk.
• Modify the yamlDoc itself and regenerate directly from that document object, rather then generating from the config.
  • This does not preserve all formatting, but does preserve much more then generating from the JS config, additionally it natively preserves comments. I have a proof of concept branch for this.

📝 Additional Context

Related Bugs/Discussions:

• Quotes being stripped from stack file #486
• Healthcheck breaks after saving, then editing #578
• compose.yaml viewer/editor adds null #595
• The web editor modifies the dockerfile_inline element when editing #673
• dockge lost single quotation when freshed #709
• Single lines in Compose.yaml are edited by dockge unnecessarily #815
• Keep empty lines/formatting in compose and env files #549