OmegaConf.to_yaml fails when passed a plain str

[Jasha10]

You can pass OmegaConf.to_yaml a dict or list with no problem:

>>> OmegaConf.to_yaml(["abc"])
'- abc\n'

But if you pass a str, you get an AssertionError:

>>> OmegaConf.to_yaml("abc")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/Jasha10/omegaconf/omegaconf/omegaconf.py", line 815, in to_yaml
    cfg = _ensure_container(cfg)
  File "/home/Jasha10/omegaconf/omegaconf/_utils.py", line 694, in _ensure_container
    assert OmegaConf.is_config(target)
AssertionError

Desired Behavior:

• a more informative error message, such as "to_yaml got a bad input of type <class 'str'>".

Does it make sense to do anything besides throwing an error? The output of the to_yaml function is a string, so I'm not sure what would be the correct way to handle inputs that are strings.

[omry]

Yes, I think it makes sense. assertion errors should be not be raised for bad user inputs, only for internal bugs.
I think a plain ValueError explaining the valid inputs to the function will be good enough.

[Jasha10]

I think a plain ValueError explaining the valid inputs to the function will be good enough.

Sounds good.