Configmap pretty display

[tsn77130]

Kubernetes version :

Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"3", GitVersion:"v1.3.6", GitCommit:"ae4550cc9c89a593bcda6678df201db1b208133b", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2016-08-26T18:13:23Z", GoVersion:"go1.6.2", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"3", GitVersion:"v1.3.6+coreos.0", GitCommit:"f6f0055b8e503cbe5fb7b6f1a2ee37d0f160c1cd", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2016-08-29T17:01:01Z", GoVersion:"go1.6.2", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}

What happened:

When I try to display configmap content with yaml output (kubectl get configmap webapp-inifile -o yaml), the output is sometimes pretty, and sometimes not -depending newlines are effectively displayed or not - just \n char-

I can't find what's the difference between some file and some others. (limit on numer of lines ?)

Configmap is created with --from-file option

Ex :

apiVersion: v1
data:
  int.ini: "###\n# app configuration\n# http://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid/en/1.5-branch/narr/environment.html\n###\n\n[global]\nenv
    = INT\n\n[app:main]\nuse = egg:ihm\n\npyramid.reload_templates
    = true\npyramid.debug_authorization = false\npyramid.debug_notfound = false\n
...

What you expected to happen:

More human readable display, in order to be able to easily change parameter when kubectl edit congifmap

###
# app configuration
# http://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid/en/1.5-branch/narr/environment.html
###

[global]
env = INT

[app:main]
use = egg:ihm

pyramid.reload_templates = true
pyramid.debug_authorization = false

How to reproduce it :

kubectl create configmap webapp-inifile --from-file=/apps/webapp/int.ini
kubectl get configmap webapp-inifile -o yaml / kubectl edit configmap webapp-inifile

[brendandburns]

Hrm, this seems to me like the right answer is to special case 'kubectl edit' for configmaps, rather than try to hack around with the YAML decoder.

I suppose we could use block quotes (e.g. |) if we see newlines but that seems error prone...

[brendandburns]

Closing this, pretty print is there, kubectl configMap edit support is there.

[jeremyeder]

This still happens on kube 1.7 :-(

I'm not 100% sure how to reproduce, but what I did was:

• have an existing configmap
• kubectl edit configmap ... and edit a few lines
• exit the editor
• kubectl edit configmap ... now I see the \n characters instead of actual newlines.
• even kubectl get configmap ... -o yaml shows the \n characters

[thedch]

I'm also seeing this issue in kube 1.7. During the past few days I have edited a configmap ~110 times, and seen the formatting get destroyed (spaces messed up, \n characters visible) twice. I can't determine anything specific that I did in those two edits that would have triggered the formatting messup.

[tsn77130]

I'm still seeing this issue too.
Pushed a lot of identical configmaps, some ones are displaying good, and some other bad.

For example, I have a configmap with 3 files in ; they all are identical except one variable ; 2 of them display normally, and the last one displays with \n ...

[rileytg]

also seeing this issue on 1.7

[rileytg]

can we reopen this issue? or open a new one?

[transient1]

I created a brand new configmap using
kubectl create configmap my-map --from-file file1 --from-file file2

and when I viewed the yaml with kubectl get configmap my-map -oyaml it's full of \n characters and escape characters. This makes it very difficult to edit.

[Haybu]

I am experiencing the same. \n character is messing up a configmap I'm creating with --from-file option. Anyone found a reason why this is happening ?

[lpzdvd]

Also failing in 1.8.4

[tutaidalal]

I am also facing the same issue of formatting .. I have a application configuration of 400-500 lines. Tryied many times. For fist 40-50 lines the format is good ans easily readable.. However, when i try to create config for entire configuration file its very difficult to edit the config map..

[huguesalary]

Same issue here. No idea what makes one configmap show better than another.

[arafatmohammed]

This issue corrupted my aws-auth configMap that authenticates my user to access the EKS cluster and while trying to add other users to the configMap the formatting corrupted the configMap file and now I am locked out of my EKS cluster.

Version: 1.10.3

[lleontop]

I don't know if this will help somebody else but I was facing the same issue with escaped data in a config map edit and get (the config map had a single .conf file), and it seems that I had a unneeded extra space at the end of a single line in my data. When I removed that extra space the pretty printing was maintained in edit and get.

[pastukhov]

1.11
Still same

[vitalyevodin]

still same ( there is an example if install helm install stable/prometheus , you will find cm/prometheus-server )

[jimmythedog]

I agree with @lleontop - I can recreate it every time
If you were to execute the following (ensuring no trailing spaces), the configmap remains "pretty"

cat <<-EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
data:
  test.properties: |-
    abc=def
    xyz=123
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: test-for-formatting
EOF

However, repeat the above (or edit the existing one with kubectl), and put a trailing space after one of the key/value pairs, and that then messes up the configmap contents

[dotw]

Can we reopen this issue? I need this feature to change the yaml in cm, and I have been struggling with the intent and \n for several days ...

[86label]

If you just want the raw output as it was read in when created --from-file, you can use jq to get the raw string (without escaped newlines etc)
If you created a configmap from a file like this:
kubectl create configmap myconfigmap --from-file mydata.txt

Get the data:
kubectl get cm myconfigmap -o json | jq '.data."mydata.txt""' -r

@akunaatrium

[brylor]

Edited a cm, came back in, and had \n all over.

Something about white space in my previous edit?

Not great overall :/

On

kubectl version
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"18", GitVersion:"v1.18.5", GitCommit:"e6503f8d8f769ace2f338794c914a96fc335df0f", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2020-07-04T15:01:15Z", GoVersion:"go1.14.4", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"darwin/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"15", GitVersion:"v1.15.6", GitCommit:"7015f71e75f670eb9e7ebd4b5749639d42e20079", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2019-11-13T11:11:50Z", GoVersion:"go1.12.12", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}

[alexjuchina]

If the formatting of cm goes wierd a simple hack to get it back to normal is :

• kubectl get cm configmap_name -o yaml > cm.yaml
• Now copy the contents of cm.yaml file and past it on yamllint.com. Yamllint.com is powerful tool to check the linting of yaml files.
  This will provide you with the configmap as expected with correct formatting.
• Paste the output in another yaml file (for e.g - cm_ready.yaml)
• kubectl apply -f cm_ready.yaml

Awesome, very good website~

[sriharshakx]

I agree with @lleontop - I can recreate it every time
If you were to execute the following (ensuring no trailing spaces), the configmap remains "pretty"

cat <<-EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
data:
  test.properties: |-
    abc=def
    xyz=123
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: test-for-formatting
EOF

However, repeat the above (or edit the existing one with kubectl), and put a trailing space after one of the key/value pairs, and that then messes up the configmap contents

Thank You very much

[stepanselyuk]

I was able to fix this behavior by:

1. Don't use tabs, convert to spaces
2. To remove spaces before a newline character, use this:

 sed -i -E 's/([[:space:]]|\r)+$//g' File.ext

It will also convert CRLF to LF only, by removing \r.

[wcarss]

Something small that exacerbates this issue is that in python's standard lib module json, up to some version (I think python 3.4, see https://bugs.python.org/issue16333), pretty printing adds a trailing space after every comma by default, unless you supply a list of separators yourself that omit the spaces (e.g. like json.dumps(data, True, indent=4, separators=(",",":"))

So if you have old-ish glue (e.g. python 2.7) that parses a k8s configmap into a file for archival purposes, and you made that file readable by pretty-printing it, using that file to regenerate a new configmap results in this gross escape behaviour.

[somaninga-pujari]

Hello There,
One of our colleague has edited configmap with wrong data, now whole cluster inaccessible with any of role, need help on immediate basis and much appreciated.
Error:
through eksctl - Error: getting auth ConfigMap: Unauthorized
through kubectl error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized)

[saiskee]

yaml marshallers will write a string to a multiline string e.g.

multiline_string: |
  some string!
  with new lines and \ no need to escape things

UNLESS

1. The string contains a \t character
2. The string terminates in a space character
3. The string contains a substring which matches the regex \n[ ]+\n

[YamilDiaz]

Hello There, One of our colleague has edited configmap with wrong data, now whole cluster inaccessible with any of role, need help on immediate basis and much appreciated. Error: through eksctl - Error: getting auth ConfigMap: Unauthorized through kubectl error: You must be logged in to the server (Unauthorized)

I am in the same situation. Were you able to solve this?

[CC11001100]

Also reproduce in v1.22.3 :(

[Auggie321]

I occasionally encountered this problem in v1.15.6 or v1.21.2,
but eventually I was able to deal with it by using edit and then using vim's own set list to back-propagate
the original static configmap code configuration under gitlab to see
if there were extra spaces, and then modifying the local configmap file based on the online configmap's set list display under edit.

The state of the online configmap under edit, to modify the local configmap file, is ultimately able to deal with this problem,
but if there is a better official way to do it would be good.

[MartinKosicky]

ession was perfect. Once you know this is your doing -- and you know how to fix it -- you're not bothered by this behaviour anymore.

yes if you are working on linux

[samermassoud]

i would like to share an observation that helped me sort out the line merging and \n.
it appears to be related to the last line of the file you are using (--from-file=file.conf)
if the last line ends with empty space or tab. the config map is merged up in one line with \n as line feed
if you remove the empty space from the last line, the ConfigMap will import file as is with |- or |+

[piyumisudusinghe]

I got the same error after editing the ConfigMap file. I used an online tool to remove the trailing white space that we cannot see in the text. After copying the content which removed trailing whitespaces I was able to resolve this issue

FYI - https://miniwebtool.com/remove-leading-trailing-spaces/ (online tool which I used)

[jainpratik163]

in v1.24 also i can see same issue.
how we can edit cm with many lines.

[chaoluo-git]

Finally, I found that the absence of a value defined or the value is empty string in valus.yaml will cause the \n issue.

data: {{ .Values.application.data}}

application.data is not defined in my yaml

just use quote to the value resolved

data: "{{ .Values.application.data}}"

[GentleSong]

delete space before \n or after \n
it works for me

[jainpratik163]

did anyone find solution when we edit cm how we can see in proper format as for me really difficult to edit cm as we have many \n char and I can still see this issue in k8s version 1.28