# Yaml load error

**URL:** <https://rubytalk.org/t/yaml-load-error/9272>\
**Category:** ruby-talk\
**Created:** [10 December 2003 03:47 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/yaml-load-error/9272 "2003-12-10T03:47:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ara.T.Howard2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/90ced4/32.png) [@Ara.T.Howard2](https://rubytalk.org/u/Ara.T.Howard2)\
**Post date:** [10 December 2003 03:47 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/yaml-load-error/9272/1 "2003-12-10T03:47:19Z")

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> Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 16:25:47 -0700  
> From: Ara.T.Howard [ahoward@ngdc.noaa.gov](mailto:ahoward@ngdc.noaa.gov)  
> Reply-To: [Ara.T.Howard@noaa.gov](mailto:Ara.T.Howard@noaa.gov)  
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.ruby  
> Subject: yaml load error
> 
> can’t figure this one out?
> 
> ~/eg/ruby \> cat yaml.rb  
> require ‘yaml’
> 
> yaml = \<\<-yaml  
> local\_contact\_email:   
> yaml
> 
> p(YAML::load(yaml))
> 
> ~/eg/ruby \> ruby yaml.rb  
> /data/ruby-1.8.0//lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:39:in `load': parse error on line 1, col -1: `’ (ArgumentError)  
> from /data/ruby-1.8.0//lib/ruby/1.8/yaml.rb:39:in `load’  
> from yaml.rb:7

hate to follow up on my own post, but the problem is that the line

> local\_contact\_email:

is actually

“local\_contact\_email: \t”

shouldn’t trailing tabs be _ok_ in yaml? or is this really a broken file  
when trailing tabs are present?

-a

> **···**
>
> ## On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, Ara.T.Howard wrote:
> 
> ATTN: please update your address books with address below!
> 
> ===============================================================================
> 
> > EMAIL :: Ara [dot] T [dot] Howard [at] noaa [dot] gov  
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> > 
> > The difference between art and science is that science is what we  
> > understand well enough to explain to a computer.  
> > Art is everything else.  
> > – Donald Knuth, “Discover”
> > 
> > /bin/sh -c ‘for l in ruby perl;do $l -e “print "\x3a\x2d\x29\x0a"”;done’  
> > ===============================================================================