Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH for-2.9 4/5] keyval: Document issues with 'any' and alternate types

[Markus Armbruster]

Eric Blake <address@hidden> writes:

> On 03/20/2017 07:55 AM, Markus Armbruster wrote:
>> Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <address@hidden>
>> ---
>>  util/keyval.c | 10 ++++++++++
>>  1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)
>> 
>> diff --git a/util/keyval.c b/util/keyval.c
>> index 46cd540..93d5db6 100644
>> --- a/util/keyval.c
>> +++ b/util/keyval.c
>> @@ -61,6 +61,16 @@
>>   * "key absent" already means "optional object/array absent", which
>>   * isn't the same as "empty object/array present".
>>   *
>> + * Design flaw: scalar values can only be strings; there is no way to
>> + * denote numbers, true, false or null.  The special QObject input
>> + * visitor returned by qobject_input_visitor_new_keyval() mostly hides
>> + * this by automatically converting strings to the type the visitor
>> + * expects.  Breaks down for alternate types and type 'any', where the
>> + * visitor's expectation isn't clear.  Code visiting such types needs
>> + * to do the conversion itself, but only when using this keyval
>> + * visitor.  Awkward.  Alternate types without a string member don't
>> + * work at all.
>
> We've toyed with the idea of making socket parsing accept an alternate
> between string and integer (right now it's string due to named port
> support, even though most users end up accessing an integer causing a
> lot of in-tree parsing/formatting between integers and strings) - that
> will be one case that is particularly impacted by this design flaw, if
> we ever go through with that idea.

I'll reply to this in "Re: Non-flat command line option argument
syntax".

>                                     But enough speculation about the
> future - your patch as written is accurate for the present.
>
> Reviewed-by: Eric Blake <address@hidden>

Thanks!