[ 2374937 ] Naming convention: Clarification wanted

[HolQue]

I would like to understand the naming convention in more detail.

#206 (comment)

(1)

W.r.t. "Alphanumeric Characters: Use letters (a-z, A-Z) and digits (0-9)."

Also 2, 3 and 4 byte characters are possible in between. Therefore the statement "Use letters (a-z, A-Z)" is outdated. Please update.

(2)

W.r.t. "Key names can contain the operator characters: +, -, and *"

A lot of non alphanumeric characters are not allowed. OK so far. But is there a certain reason, to allow especially +, -, and *? What is the use case? It would be worth to mention this in documentation.

(3)

How about '/'? This character is not mentioned in naming convention.

"par/am1" : "value" is accepted. OK nor not?

(4)

How about blanks inside key names ("par am" : "value")? Currently this is accepted. OK nor not?

[test-fullautomation]

3. / should be allowed. With this you can build e.g. some hierarchy.
4. blank should be not allowed.

[HolQue]

Definition accepted, access not.

"param/4"   : 10,
"check10"   : ${param/4}

The second line causes:

Expecting ',' delimiter

This needs to be fixed.

[HolQue]

I still stumble about the naming convention like written down in #206 (comment)

There is a lot of redundancy and not all aspects are clarified. After thinking about, this is my version now:

• Key names can consist of letters, digits and the following special characters: _ + - * /
• Key names have to start with a letter, a digit or an underscore
• Key names must not be empty strings. Key names must not contain blanks or tabs only

Any other character than letters, digits and _ + - * / are not allowed in key names!

Open questions:

(1)

How to handle leading and trailing blanks or tabs (allowed in pure JSON, but not preferred)?

"keyname  "   : "value"
"  keyname"   : "value"
"  keyname  " : "value"

Shall this cause an error or shall the JsonPreprocessor automatically make a conversion to:

"keyname" : "value"

in such a case?

(2)

How to handle the backslash? Is allowed in pure JSON, but must be masked. Therefore this should be allowed in general:

"path\\to\\file" : "C:\\Users\\Example\\file.txt"

But JsonPreprocessor throws an error. Is there a certain reason for the JsonPreprocessor to deviate from JSON standard here?

[HolQue]

Reworked version:

• Key names can only consist of letters, digits and the following special characters: _ + - * / \ (backslashes are allowed but have to be masked).
• Key names have to start with a letter, a digit or an underscore.
• Key names must not be empty strings. But leading and trailing blanks will be removed (and therefore do not cause errors).

[namsonx]

Hello Holger,

The change for this ticket was pushed to stabi branch.

Thank you,
Son

[HolQue]

Hi Son,

the new blank detection is not Unicode save.

"𠼭" : 1

causes:

Error: 'Invalid key name: 'ð ¼­'. Key names must not contain blanks.'!

Another possible improvement:

"path\to\file" : "root_path"

causes

'Invalid key name: 'path oile'. Key names must not contain blanks.'

Yes, this is plausible. Caused by the valid escape sequences \t and \f.

But this is not nice. An invalid escape sequence (e.g. \C) causes: Invalid \escape. Any other invalid character causes a naming convention error. This means, the error handling works. But nevertheless I would prefer another solution:

Key name expressions like "path\to\file" should be handled as as raw strings - to avoid side effects caused by escape sequences. In general backslashes are allowed inside key names - but they must be masked. Inside raw strings this can be detected.

The example above contains unmasked backslashes and therefore should cause a naming convention violation error. In this context I assume that escape sequences are not allowed inside key names generally.

The error message:

Key names are limited to letters, digits and the following characters: _ + - * / \ @

should be extended to:

Key names are limited to letters, digits and the following characters: _ + - * / \\ @

To make it more clear that only masked backslashes are allowed. The actual error message is a little bit mistakable with regard to backslashes.

[HolQue]

Another reason for banning escape sequences:

" \tparam" : "value"

causes:

Error: 'Invalid key name: " param". Key names have to start with a letter, digit or underscore.'!