Re: [Yaml-core] YAML.pm's basic interface for loading and dumping

[Brian I. <in...@tt...>]

On 19/08/02 14:27 -0400, Steve Howell wrote:
> From: "Brian Ingerson" <in...@tt...>
> >
> > Perl can use this particular interface a bit more powerfully because it
> > is list oriented:
> >
> >   yaml_stream = YAML::dump(object_list)
> >   object_list = YAML::load(yaml_stream)
> >
> 
> This was actually a source of confusion, not convenience, for me in using the
> yaml.pm interface, although I blame Perl culture, not yaml.pm, for it.
> 
> How do you distinguish these case when using YAML::dump?
> 
> 1) You have a list of objects that should be written as separate documents.
> 2) You have an object that happens to be a list, but which should be written as
> a single document.

That's the beauty of Perl lists: they're not a data structure, they're a
series of zero or more disjoint objects. I leverage this in YAML,
because in YAML (not coincidentally) a stream is a series of zero or more
disjoint documents.

This doesn't apply as well to Python, because to emulate Perl list behaviour,
you need to use a data structure, namely an array, (which to make matters
ultimately confusing, Python calls a "list").

I'm not sure if Ruby has a Perl-list concept. Basically a list is really just
a direct mapping of the call stack.

Cheers, Brian