Believe it or not, according to the YAML specification, anchors do not have to be unique. In other words, an anchor name can be reused like this:

alpha: &foo # first one
  repeat: me

bravo: *foo

charlie: &foo # second one
  another: one

delta: *foo

Let’s say the YAML file name is a.yaml. Here’s an example result with Ruby’s YAML library:

require 'yaml'

yaml = YAML.load_file('a.yaml', aliases: true)
p yaml['bravo'] # => {"repeat"=>"me"}
p yaml['delta'] # => {"another"=>"one"}

For what? I think if anything, it could be misleading.

See also⌗