Support inline array/struct syntax in M2 properties

[mpwoodward]

(Moved from http://trac.mach-ii.com/machii/ticket/666)

I'd like to be able to do this in the config file:

<property name="myArray" value=['one','two','three'] />
<property name="myStruct" value={first='one',second='two'} />

and arrays or structs of arrays, etc... I know you support this already using the tag-based syntax, just looking for something a little more concise.

Thanks!

-Jason

Changed 22 months ago by peterjfarrell

Cc matt_woodward, kurt_wiersma, mike_rogers, adrian_scott, brian_fitzgerald added
Description modified (diff)
Thanks for the ideal Jason -- definitely something I'd like to look into supporting. However without the quotes value={first='one',second='two'} -- this is not valid XML. We'd have to look into supporting it in another way. I'm just throwing this out as an idea:

<property name="myArray" complex="['one','two','three']" />

The reason why I'm not suggesting it as an value is because it would be very hard for us to distinguish from a straight string versus a complex notation (this is ambiguous):

<property name="myStruct" value="{first='one',second='two'}" />

The value attribute has always been straight strings so I think we need to keep to that. Any other ideas on how to do this while remaining valid XML?

comment:2 Changed 22 months ago by peterjfarrell

BTW, you got a very evil ticket number if you get my drift ;-)

comment:3 Changed 22 months ago by peterjfarrell

Just a thought after discussing this with Matt that we could do something like:

<property name="temp" value="${['one','two','three']}" />

Thoughts?