today I found following strange behavior in yaml-cpp library.
Following yaml fragment:
- { a: b }
is correctly parsed as key:value element with key=a and value=b. But when I updated fragment to this:
- { a:b }
fragment is evaluated as scalar value "a:b".
Is this correct behavior? And is there a simply way how to force parser to evaluate this fragment as key:value ?
Thanks!
This is correct behavior. From the YAML spec:
Normally, YAML insists the “:” mapping value indicator be separated from the value by white space. A benefit of this restriction is that the “:” character can be used inside plain scalars, as long as it is not followed by white space. This allows for unquoted URLs and timestamps. It is also a potential source for confusion as “a:1” is a plain scalar and not a key: value pair.
...
To ensure JSON compatibility, if a key inside a flow mapping is JSON-like, YAML allows the following value to be specified adjacent to the “:”. This causes no ambiguity, as all JSON-like keys are surrounded by indicators.
For example, you could write:
- { "a":b }
However, as they point out, this isn't very readable; stick with putting a space after the colon.
