Load YAML mappings as ordered dictionaries

yaml_ordered_dict.py

import yaml
import yaml.constructor

try:
    # included in standard lib from Python 2.7
    from collections import OrderedDict
except ImportError:
    # try importing the backported drop-in replacement
    # it's available on PyPI
    from ordereddict import OrderedDict

class OrderedDictYAMLLoader(yaml.Loader):
    """
    A YAML loader that loads mappings into ordered dictionaries.
    """

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        yaml.Loader.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)

        self.add_constructor(u'tag:yaml.org,2002:map', type(self).construct_yaml_map)
        self.add_constructor(u'tag:yaml.org,2002:omap', type(self).construct_yaml_map)

    def construct_yaml_map(self, node):
        data = OrderedDict()
        yield data
        value = self.construct_mapping(node)
        data.update(value)

    def construct_mapping(self, node, deep=False):
        if isinstance(node, yaml.MappingNode):
            self.flatten_mapping(node)
        else:
            raise yaml.constructor.ConstructorError(None, None,
                'expected a mapping node, but found %s' % node.id, node.start_mark)

        mapping = OrderedDict()
        for key_node, value_node in node.value:
            key = self.construct_object(key_node, deep=deep)
            try:
                hash(key)
            except TypeError, exc:
                raise yaml.constructor.ConstructorError('while constructing a mapping',
                    node.start_mark, 'found unacceptable key (%s)' % exc, key_node.start_mark)
            value = self.construct_object(value_node, deep=deep)
            mapping[key] = value
        return mapping

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import textwrap

    sample = """
    one:
        two: fish
        red: fish
        blue: fish
    two:
        a: yes
        b: no
        c: null
    """

    data = yaml.load(textwrap.dedent(sample), OrderedDictYAMLLoader)

    assert type(data) is OrderedDict
    print data

MIT license on oyaml here https://github.com/wimglenn/oyaml

From PyYAML 5.1 on, a dictionary can be dumped without reordering keys with:

yaml.dump(data, sort_keys=False)

Saw this on stack overflow and it works, the docs don't seem to be updated though...