Karl Palmskog (Jan 25 2023 at 08:10): Karl Palmskog (Jan 25 2023 at 08:10):Erik retweeted the following article which explains the issues with the current YAML definition: https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/2023/01/11/the-yaml-document-from-hell
We should probably take this into account for any successor to the current templates (e.g., use JSON with comments or TOML)
Théo Zimmermann (Jan 25 2023 at 12:35):These critics are all valid, but YAML still is more friendly to write in many cases, e.g., if you want to include a paragraph of formatted text. I mentioned (but did not test) YAY before (https://github.com/chetmurthy/yay). YAY claims to be "merely a nicer syntax for writing JSON documents", so it might avoid some of the pitfalls described in this blog post (unclear).
Théo Zimmermann (Jan 25 2023 at 12:36):It's funny that the blog post mentions the option of generating JSON from Nix since this is exactly what the Coq Nix Toolbox does to create GitHub Action workflows.
Erik Martin-Dorel (Feb 05 2023 at 20:04):Karl Palmskog said:
Erik retweeted the following article which explains the issues with the current YAML definition: https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/2023/01/11/the-yaml-document-from-hell
We should probably take this into account for any successor to the current templates (e.g., use JSON with comments or TOML)
@Karl Palmskog, I actually tweeted this blog article more to share a "curiosity" than to suggest there is any concern with YAML!
To sum up: you can check that all gotchas mentioned are just due to the fact the blog author does not properly quote strings (to some extend, he does not write clean YAML :)
The simplest way to exemplify this fact relies on the floating-point interpretation:
If you write
versions:
- 8.10
then 8.10 is seen as a float and subsequently shortened to 8.1 :sweat_smile:
But if you write
versions:
- "8.10"
then there is no issue at all.
So I'm sorry if my remark made you think about we should move away from YAML… I really think that it's a very good data-serialization format, more concise than XML, more readable than JSON, and still robust (much more than CSV for example)
Karl Palmskog (Feb 06 2023 at 20:17):I'm still leaning towards something like YAY for Templates 2.0...
Paolo Giarrusso (Feb 06 2023 at 23:55):I think the issues with complexity are real, and this is the first time I hear suggestions of quoting all strings — which requires escaping other characters. Many recommend >, but apparently that adds a newline and you need >- instead (https://stackoverflow.com/a/22483116/53974).
Paolo Giarrusso (Feb 06 2023 at 23:55):and if you quote all strings, I wonder if you need all of YAML's complexity?
Last updated: Jun 03 2023 at 18:01 UTC