escaping-yaml

name	escaping-yaml
description	Escapes user-supplied strings for safe embedding in YAML documents: quotes, special characters, multi-line blocks, and type-coercion traps. Use when the user asks to escape, quote, or safely embed a value in YAML.

Escape a value for YAML

Produce the safely quoted form of the value the user supplies.

Steps

1. Inspect the value for YAML special characters, leading/trailing whitespace, and strings YAML would coerce to another type (yes, no, null, version-like numbers).
2. Choose the quoting style: single quotes by default; double quotes when the value contains single quotes or control characters; a literal block (|) for multi-line values.
3. Never emit an unquoted scalar for user-supplied input.
4. Show the escaped value and the reason the quoting style was chosen.

Output

The escaped value in a fenced code block, followed by one sentence naming the quoting style and why.