[Dancer-users] User-friendly errors on YAML parsing failures (was: Re: dancer croaking with a strange error in config.yml)

[Philippe Bruhat (BooK)]

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:46:01AM +0200, sawyer x wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:42 AM, damien krotkine
> <dkrotkine at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >
> > try to parse the config file. If it fails, try to parse the error
> > message sent by YAML, and extract the line / column from the
> > message. It's usually reported accurately. Then 2 cases : if
> > Carp::Verbose is false (general case), perform a croak (not a
> > confess), with a human message saying " failed to parse config file
> > '$filename', at line 42, column 12. Take extra care to spaces and
> > tabs, blabla". If Carp::Verbose is true, then do a confess instead,
> > appending the full YAML message.
> >
>
> Disagree. We shouldn't be trying to parse error messages of other
> modules. You cannot be sure it will be consistent between versions or
> between engines or between modules.
>
> We should be outputting a "Reading your configuration file failed.
> This was the error message: $msg\n" Something like that, no more.

I agree with Sawyer.

This is also the simplest code change that can possibly be done.
Along with the doc changes discussed before (either in Dancer::Config
or in a FAQ entry), that should solve a great deal of YAML-related issues.

-- 
 Philippe Bruhat (BooK)

 In war, the only winners are those who sell the weapons.
                                                 (Moral from Groo #3 (Image))