Raise understandable error on non-dict conversion failure

4 files changed, 9 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 67be9c7..b9cde75 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ XML support
 ``yq`` also supports XML. The ``yq`` package installs an executable, ``xq``, which
 `transcodes XML to JSON <https://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/05/31/converting-between-xml-and-json.html>`_ using
 `xmltodict <https://github.com/martinblech/xmltodict>`_ and pipes it to ``jq``. Roundtrip transcoding is available with
-the ``xq -x`` option. Multiple XML documents can be passed in separate files/streams as ``xq a.xml b.xml``.
+the ``xq --xml-output``/``xq -x`` option. Multiple XML documents can be passed in separate files/streams as
+``xq a.xml b.xml``.
 
 .. admonition:: Compatibility note
 
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 46f9d22..47be384 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -2,4 +2,4 @@
 universal=1
 [flake8]
 max-line-length=120
-ignore: E301, E302, E305, E401, E261, E265, E226, F401, E501
+ignore: E302, E305, E401
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 2ab5bf3..a0ead87 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python
 
-import os, glob
+import glob
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
 
 tests_require = ["coverage", "flake8", "wheel"]
diff --git a/yq/__init__.py b/yq/__init__.py
index 88e45c5..acc5cdb 100755
--- a/yq/__init__.py
+++ b/yq/__init__.py
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ def represent_dict_order(dumper, data):
 def decode_docs(jq_output, json_decoder):
     while jq_output:
         doc, pos = json_decoder.raw_decode(jq_output)
-        jq_output = jq_output[pos+1:]
+        jq_output = jq_output[pos + 1:]
         yield doc
 
 OrderedLoader.add_constructor(yaml.resolver.BaseResolver.DEFAULT_MAPPING_TAG, construct_mapping)
@@ -116,11 +116,13 @@ def main(args=None, input_format="yaml"):
             jq_out, jq_err = jq.communicate(input_payload)
             json_decoder = json.JSONDecoder(object_pairs_hook=OrderedDict)
             if args.yaml_output:
-                yaml.dump_all(decode_docs(jq_out, json_decoder), stream=sys.stdout, Dumper=OrderedDumper, width=args.width,
-                              allow_unicode=True, default_flow_style=False)
+                yaml.dump_all(decode_docs(jq_out, json_decoder), stream=sys.stdout, Dumper=OrderedDumper,
+                              width=args.width, allow_unicode=True, default_flow_style=False)
             elif args.xml_output:
                 import xmltodict
                 for doc in decode_docs(jq_out, json_decoder):
+                    if not isinstance(doc, OrderedDict):
+                        parser.exit("yq: Error converting JSON to XML: cannot represent non-object types at top level")
                     xmltodict.unparse(doc, output=sys.stdout, full_document=False, pretty=True, indent="  ")
                     sys.stdout.write(b"\n" if sys.version_info < (3, 0) else "\n")
         else: