Bug in the YAML library: #dump fails for certain multi-line strings

ruby-talk
1

Hey guys,

I stumbled across what is a bug in the YAML library. It does not
properly encode certain multi-line strings. Fire up irb, and try the
following:

require 'yaml'

=> true

s3 = "\n Do I work?\nNo indent"

=> "\n Do I work?\nNo indent"

YAML.load(YAML.dump(s3))

ArgumentError: syntax error on line 3, col 0: `No indent'
  from /opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.6-20080810/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in
`load'
  from /opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.6-20080810/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in
`load'
  from (irb):3

I've confirmed it's broken in both 1.8.6.p111, and REE 1.8.6.p287.

I wrote up a pretty thorough exploration of this bug in a blog post
describing the problem and offering a (sub-optimal) patch:
http://blog.smartlogicsolutions.com/2008/09/04/ruby-patch-to-fix-broken-yamldump-for-multi-line-strings-stringto_yaml/

Is this the right list to discuss this?

-John

2

Just upping this because I think it's particularly important. Is
there a better venue to discuss this? Just curious where the
interested parties (read: the ruby YAML library maintainers) are.....

-John

···

On Sep 5, 6:17 am, John Trupiano <jtrupi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey guys,

I stumbled across what is a bug in the YAML library. It does not
properly encode certain multi-line strings. Fire up irb, and try the
following:

>> require 'yaml'
=> true
>> s3 = "\n Do I work?\nNo indent"

=> "\n Do I work?\nNo indent">> YAML.load(YAML.dump(s3))

ArgumentError: syntax error on line 3, col 0: `No indent'
from /opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.6-20080810/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in
`load'
from /opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.6-20080810/lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:133:in
`load'
from (irb):3

I've confirmed it's broken in both 1.8.6.p111, and REE 1.8.6.p287.

I wrote up a pretty thorough exploration of this bug in a blog post
describing the problem and offering a (sub-optimal) patch:http://blog.smartlogicsolutions.com/2008/09/04/ruby-patch-to-fix-brok\.\.\.

Is this the right list to discuss this?

-John