Can't Emit an Empty Value with yaml-cpp - yaml-cpp

I would like to emit an empty value but when I assign an empty string to be emitted the output is not technically empty.
Code Snippet:
YAML::Emitter out;
std::string name;
out << YAML::Key << "name";
out << YAML::Value << name;
Expected yaml Output:
name:
Actual yaml Output:
name: ""
As you can see I have an empty string defined and I expect the yaml output to effectively be empty.
Is this intended behavior? If so is there a way to work around this? I'm aiming to have my entire yaml output be quote free.

The YAML
name:
doesn't have a string value for the key name; it's actually a null value. See, e.g., an online parser here; the canonical YAML representation is:
!!map {
? !!str "name"
: !!null "null",
}
yaml-cpp is trying to ensure that what you told it ("write this empty string") is how the resulting YAML will be parsed, so it's writing the empty string as "".
If you want to write a null value, then either don't write a value, or write YAML::Null. The latter (I believe) will produce
name: ~
which is the canonical form of null.

Related

Take string if not empty not working as expected

I have a fun that replaces comma with empty string. Then converts it to double. User can input only numbers and commas. After replace I want to take this string only if its not empty for conversion purposes. But although its empty takeIf{} doesnt seem to see it this way. When I enter only "," as first char in a string, the conversion fails throwing:
java.lang.NumberFormatException: empty String
Scenario when entering , as first char.
replace(",", "")
.takeIf {
println(it) //prints nothing
println(it.length) //prints 0
if (isNotEmpty()) { // docs says that it checks if length > 0, which is not, so string is empty
println("not empty") // still prints not empty
} else {
println("empty")
}
isNotEmpty()
}?.toDouble()) // runs toDouble on empty string
Logs:
System.out: 0
System.out: not empty
Note that replace returns the adapted String, but does not alter the underlying string... So when you call isNotEmpty() you check for the initial/receiver String (which was ","), but when you print the content or the length, you take the result of the replacement (it).
So if you use it consequently, it will work as you expect.
Note also that there exists toDoubleOrNull() which just returns null if no double can be extracted from the String, e.g:
replace(",", "").toDoubleOrNull() // if it is not parseable, we get null
So you can spare even more characters and conditions in your code.

What could be a reason for `_localctx` being null in an antlr4 semantic predicate?

I'm using list labels to gather tokens and semantic predicates to validate sequences in my parser grammar. E.g.
line
:
(text+=WORD | text+=NUMBER)+ ((BLANK | SKIP)+ (text+=WORD | text+=NUMBER)+)+
{Parser.validateContext(_localctx)}?
(BLANK | SKIP)*
;
where
WORD: [\u0021-\u002F\u003A-\u007E]+; // printable ASCII characters (excluding SP and numbers)
NUMBER: [\u0030-\u0039]+; // printable ASCII number characters
BLANK: '\u0020';
SKIP: '\u0020\u0020' | '\t'; // two SPs or a HT symbol
The part of Parser.validateContext used to validate the line rule would be implemented like this
private static final boolean validateContext(ParserRuleContext context) {
//.. other contexts
if(context instanceof LineContext)
return "<reference-sequence>".equals(Parser.joinTokens(((LineContext) context).text, " "));
return false;}
where Parser.joinTokens is defined as
private static String joinTokens(java.util.List<org.antlr.v4.runtime.Token> tokens, String delimiter) {
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
int i = 0, n;
if((n = tokens.size()) == 0) return "";
builder.append(tokens.get(0).getText());
while(++i < n) builder.append(delimiter + tokens.get(i).getText());
return builder.toString();}
Both are put in a #parser::members clause a the beginning of the grammar file.
My problem is this: sometimes the _localctx reference is null and I receive "no viable alternative" errors. These are probably caused because the failing predicate guards the respective rule and no alternative is given.
Is there a reason–potentially an error on my part–why _localctx would be null?
UPDATE: The answer to this question seems to suggest that semantic predicates are also called during prediction. Maybe during prediction no context is created and _localctx is set to null.
The semantics of _localctx in a predicate are not defined. Allowable behavior includes, but is not limited to the following (and may change during any release):
Failing to compile (no identifier with that name)
Using the wrong context object
Not having a context object (null)
To reference the context of the current rule from within a predicate, you need to use $ctx instead.
Note that the same applies for rule parameters, locals, and/or return values which are used in a predicate. For example, the parameter a cannot be referenced as a, but must instead be $a.

How to get the original text using $text at the same time rule returns value

So I have the following grammar:
top_cmd :cmds
{
std::cout << $cmds.text << std::endl;
}
;
cmds returns [char* str]
: cmd+
{
str = new char('a');
}
;
I get g++ compile error:
"str" was not declared in this scope
If I remove this line
std::cout << $cmds.text << std::endl;
Then compile is fine.
I googled how "$text" is used, it seems to me it is expected to use $text for the purpose of rewrite rules. In my example, the function "cmds" returns "char*" when I remove the offending line and some complex structure when I keep it.
I can think of the following workaround:
1. do not have lower level rules return anything, but pass variable into lower level rules.
2. use re-write rules
But both are pretty big change(my real project is fairly large) considering how much time budge I have.
So is there a short-cut? Basically I do not want to change the grammar of top_cmd and cmds, but I can get the full text of cmds' matching.
I am using ANTLR3C, but I believe this is independent of target language.
I think you should do something like this:
top_cmd :cmds
{
std::cout << $cmds.text << std::endl;}
;
cmds returns [char* str]
: cmd+
{
$str = new char('a'); //added $
}
;
$cmds.text will return the text matched for the rule cmds. If you want to return the str, you should change it for $cmds.str
$text: The text matched for a rule or the text matched
from the start of the rule up until the point of
the $text expression evaluation. Note that this
includes the text for all tokens including those
on hidden channels, which is what you want
because usually that has all the whitespace and
comments. When referring to the current rule,
this attribute is available in any action including
any exception actions.
from the Definitive Antrl reference

writing output to a file in Graphchi

I wrote a shortest path code in Graphchi and I wanted to print the output of that in a file. I was trying to use the template shown in the examples but I get error if I use the sameway of writing to a file as in other examples.
I have got stuck here. As the output I just want to print (vertex id,its minimum distance from source).
How can i do that.
Here is example how you can output values of all vertices to the console. It is easy to modify it to write the output to a file. Note that if you can handle binary files, GraphChi already has the vertex values in a file: .B.vout, where is sizeof(VertexDataType).
1) You need to define a callback-function, which will take vertex id and value as parameter
class OutputVertexCallback : public VCallback<VertexDataType> {
public:
virtual void callback(vid_t vertex_id, VertexDataType &value) {
std::cout << vertex_id << "=" << value << std::endl;
}
};
2) Then you need to call foreach_vertices() as follows to get the output:
OutputVertexCallback callback;
foreach_vertices<VertexDataType>(filename, 0, engine.num_vertices(), callback);

Determine type of a variable in Tcl

I'm looking for a way to find the type of a variable in Tcl. For example if I have the variable $a and I want to know whether it is an integer.
I have been using the following so far:
if {[string is boolean $a]} {
#do something
}
and this seems to work great for the following types:
alnum, alpha, ascii, boolean, control, digit, double, false, graph, integer, lower, print, punct, space, true, upper, wordchar, xdigit
However it is not capable to tell me if my variable might be an array, a list or a dictionary. Does anyone know of a way to tell if a variable is either of those three?
Tcl's variables don't have types (except for whether or not they're really an associative array of variables — i.e., using the $foo(bar) syntax — for which you use array exists) but Tcl's values do. Well, somewhat. Tcl can mutate values between different types as it sees fit and does not expose this information[*]; all you can really do is check whether a value conforms to a particular type.
Such conformance checks are done with string is (where you need the -strict option, for ugly historical reasons):
if {[string is integer -strict $foo]} {
puts "$foo is an integer!"
}
if {[string is list $foo]} { # Only [string is] where -strict has no effect
puts "$foo is a list! (length: [llength $foo])"
if {[llength $foo]&1 == 0} {
# All dictionaries conform to lists with even length
puts "$foo is a dictionary! (entries: [dict size $foo])"
}
}
Note that all values conform to the type of strings; Tcl's values are always serializable.
[EDIT from comments]: For JSON serialization, it's possible to use dirty hacks to produce a “correct” serialization (strictly, putting everything in a string would be correct from Tcl's perspective but that's not precisely helpful to other languages) with Tcl 8.6. The code to do this, originally posted on Rosetta Code is:
package require Tcl 8.6
proc tcl2json value {
# Guess the type of the value; deep *UNSUPPORTED* magic!
regexp {^value is a (.*?) with a refcount} \
[::tcl::unsupported::representation $value] -> type
switch $type {
string {
# Skip to the mapping code at the bottom
}
dict {
set result "{"
set pfx ""
dict for {k v} $value {
append result $pfx [tcl2json $k] ": " [tcl2json $v]
set pfx ", "
}
return [append result "}"]
}
list {
set result "\["
set pfx ""
foreach v $value {
append result $pfx [tcl2json $v]
set pfx ", "
}
return [append result "\]"]
}
int - double {
return [expr {$value}]
}
booleanString {
return [expr {$value ? "true" : "false"}]
}
default {
# Some other type; do some guessing...
if {$value eq "null"} {
# Tcl has *no* null value at all; empty strings are semantically
# different and absent variables aren't values. So cheat!
return $value
} elseif {[string is integer -strict $value]} {
return [expr {$value}]
} elseif {[string is double -strict $value]} {
return [expr {$value}]
} elseif {[string is boolean -strict $value]} {
return [expr {$value ? "true" : "false"}]
}
}
}
# For simplicity, all "bad" characters are mapped to \u... substitutions
set mapped [subst -novariables [regsub -all {[][\u0000-\u001f\\""]} \
$value {[format "\\\\u%04x" [scan {& } %c]]}]]
return "\"$mapped\""
}
Warning: The above code is not supported. It depends on dirty hacks. It's liable to break without warning. (But it does work. Porting to Tcl 8.5 would require a tiny C extension to read out the type annotations.)
[*] Strictly, it does provide an unsupported interface for discovering the current type annotation of a value in 8.6 — as part of ::tcl::unsupported::representation — but that information is in a deliberately human-readable form and subject to change without announcement. It's for debugging, not code. Also, Tcl uses rather a lot of different types internally (e.g., cached command and variable names) that you won't want to probe for under normal circumstances; things are rather complex under the hood…
The other answers all provide very useful information, but it's worth noting something that a lot of people don't seem to grok at first.
In Tcl, values don't have a type... they question is whether they can be used as a given type. You can think about it this way
string is integer $a
You're not asking
Is the value in $a an integer
What you are asking is
Can I use the value in $a as an integer
Its useful to consider the difference between the two questions when you're thinking along the lines of "is this an integer". Every integer is also a valid list (of one element)... so it can be used as either and both string is commands will return true (as will several others for an integer).
If you want to deal with JSON then I highly suggest you read the JSON page on the Tcl wiki: http://wiki.tcl.tk/json.
On that page I posted a simple function that compiles Tcl values to JSON string given a formatting descriptor. I also find the discussion on that page very informative.
For arrays you want array exists
for dicts you want dict exists
for a list I don't think there is a built in way prior to 8.5?, there is this from http://wiki.tcl.tk/440
proc isalist {string} {
return [expr {0 == [catch {llength $string}]}]
}
To determine if a variable is an array:
proc is_array {var} {
upvar 1 $var value
if {[catch {array names $value} errmsg]} { return 1 }
return 0
}
# How to use it
array set ar {}
set x {1 2 3}
puts "ar is array? [is_array ar]"; # ar is array? 1
puts "x is array? [is_array x]"; # x is array? 0
For the specific case of telling if a value is usable as a dictionary, tcllib's dicttool package has a dict is_dict <value> command that returns a true value if <value> can act as one.