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For a personal project, I need to parse YAML file. I chose to use C-based libYAML instead of yaml-cpp, because:

  1. I try to keep my dependencies to what's commonly installed and Debian statistics show 45% installs already have libYAML, vs 0.5% for yaml-cpp.
  2. I don't need variant node types, as the config parser that uses this wrapper builds the final datastructures directly using a state machine.

I wrote this lightweight wrapper around the library.

The wrapper aims at encapsulating all the details of the C library, throwing exceptions when errors arise and leaking no resources in the process. In addition, its header must not have any libYAML-related stuff in it, so I can change the underlying implementation later should I want to.

Provided API is an inheritable class that converts parsing events into virtual method calls, a la hierarchical visitor pattern, but without conditional navigation.

Here comes the API (YAMLParser.h):

#ifndef YAML_PARSER_H
#define YAML_PARSER_H

#include <stddef.h>
#include <exception>
#include <istream>
#include <string>

class YAMLParser
{
public:
    class ParseError : public std::exception
    {
    public:
                    ParseError(const std::string & what, size_t line, size_t col);
                    ParseError(const std::string & what, size_t line, size_t col,
                               const std::string & context, size_t ctx_line);
        const char *what() const noexcept override { return m_what.c_str(); }
    protected:
        std::string m_what;
    };

public:
    virtual         ~YAMLParser() {}
    virtual void    parse(std::istream & stream);

protected:
    virtual void    streamStart() = 0;
    virtual void    streamEnd() = 0;
    virtual void    documentStart() = 0;
    virtual void    documentEnd() = 0;
    virtual void    sequenceStart(const std::string & tag, const std::string & anchor) = 0;
    virtual void    sequenceEnd() = 0;
    virtual void    mappingStart(const std::string & tag, const std::string & anchor) = 0;
    virtual void    mappingEnd() = 0;
    virtual void    alias(const std::string & anchor) = 0;
    virtual void    scalar(const std::string & value, const std::string & tag,
                           const std::string & anchor) = 0;

    ParseError      makeError(const std::string & what) const
                    { return ParseError(what, m_line, m_column); }
private:
    size_t          m_line;
    size_t          m_column;
};

#endif

And here comes the implementation:

#include <yaml.h>
#include <istream>
#include <memory>
#include <sstream>
#include "myproject/YAMLParser.h"

/****************************************************************************/
// Helpers

/** Wrapper class for yaml_parser_t object
 *
 * Using a wrapper ensures all resources will be properly freed even
 * if an exception is throw during parsing.
 */
class Parser final
{
public:
    Parser(std::istream & stream)
    {
        m_done = false;
        m_hasEvent = false;
        if (yaml_parser_initialize(&m_parser) == 0) {
            throw std::runtime_error("YAML parser initialization failed");
        }
        yaml_parser_set_input(&m_parser, readHandler, &stream);
    }

    ~Parser()
    {
        if (m_hasEvent) { yaml_event_delete(&event); }
        yaml_parser_delete(&m_parser);
    }

    void parseNext()
    {
        if (m_hasEvent) {
            yaml_event_delete(&event);
            m_hasEvent = false;
        }
        if (yaml_parser_parse(&m_parser, &event) == 0) {
            throw YAMLParser::ParseError(
                m_parser.problem,
                m_parser.problem_mark.line, m_parser.problem_mark.column,
                m_parser.context, m_parser.context_mark.line
            );
        }
        m_hasEvent = true;
        if (event.type == YAML_STREAM_END_EVENT) { m_done = true; }
    }

    bool done() const { return m_done; }

private:
    static int readHandler(void * stream_ptr, unsigned char * buffer,
                           size_t size, size_t * size_read)
    {
        std::istream & stream = *reinterpret_cast<std::istream*>(stream_ptr);
        if (!stream.eof()) {
            stream.read(reinterpret_cast<std::istream::char_type*>(buffer), size);
            *size_read = stream.gcount();
        } else {
            *size_read = 0;
        }
        return stream.bad() ? 0 : 1;
    }

public:
    yaml_event_t    event;

private:
    bool            m_done;         ///< Set when end of stream was reached
    yaml_parser_t   m_parser;       ///< libYAML parser object
    bool            m_hasEvent;     ///< Set when @ref event holds an event
};

/****************************************************************************/

static const char * toStr(const yaml_char_t * str) {
    if (str == NULL) { return ""; }
    return reinterpret_cast<const char *>(str);
}

void YAMLParser::parse(std::istream & stream)
{
    auto parser = Parser(stream);

    while (!parser.done()) {
        parser.parseNext();
        m_line = parser.event.start_mark.line;
        m_column = parser.event.start_mark.column;

        switch (parser.event.type) {
        case YAML_STREAM_START_EVENT:   streamStart(); break;
        case YAML_STREAM_END_EVENT:     streamEnd(); break;
        case YAML_DOCUMENT_START_EVENT: documentStart(); break;
        case YAML_DOCUMENT_END_EVENT:   documentEnd(); break;
        case YAML_SEQUENCE_START_EVENT: {
            const auto & data = parser.event.data.sequence_start;
            sequenceStart(toStr(data.tag), toStr(data.anchor));
            break;
        }
        case YAML_SEQUENCE_END_EVENT:   sequenceEnd(); break;
        case YAML_MAPPING_START_EVENT: {
            const auto & data = parser.event.data.mapping_start;
            mappingStart(toStr(data.tag), toStr(data.anchor));
            break;
        }
        case YAML_MAPPING_END_EVENT:    mappingEnd(); break;
        case YAML_ALIAS_EVENT: {
            const auto & data = parser.event.data.alias;
            alias(toStr(data.anchor));
            break;
        }
        case YAML_SCALAR_EVENT: {
            const auto & data = parser.event.data.scalar;
            scalar(std::string(toStr(data.value), data.length),
                   toStr(data.tag), toStr(data.anchor));
            break;
        }
        default:
            throw std::logic_error("unexpected event type");
        }
    }
}

/****************************************************************************/

YAMLParser::ParseError::ParseError(const std::string & what, size_t line, size_t col)
{
    std::ostringstream error;
    error <<what <<" line " <<line + 1 <<" column " <<col + 1;
    m_what = error.str();
}

YAMLParser::ParseError::ParseError(const std::string & what, size_t line, size_t col,
                                   const std::string & context, size_t ctx_line)
{
    std::ostringstream error;
    error <<what
          <<" line " <<line + 1 <<" column " <<col + 1
          <<" " <<context <<" from line " <<ctx_line + 1;
    m_what = error.str();
}

As I am updating my rusty knowledge of C++, trying to take advantage of C++11 as well, I would appreciate comments: interface / implementation mistakes, style errors, ways to make it more canonical, …

I would also be interested in finding potential leaks that may be caused by exceptions or non-obvious corner cases. All yaml_*_t objects, once initialized, must be destroyed exactly once using the appropriate yaml_*_delete functions.

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2
  • \$\begingroup\$ You may to look at my YAML parser (that wraps libyaml). github.com/Loki-Astari/ThorsSerializer/blob/master/doc/… The example shows JSON but it handles YAML in the same way. It provides a C++11 interface for reading/writing YAML objects using a simple declaration). \$\endgroup\$ Apr 14, 2017 at 17:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ That sounds pretty cool, I will definitely have a look at it. \$\endgroup\$
    – spectras
    Apr 14, 2017 at 18:00

1 Answer 1

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Exceptions

There is no need to write your own what() method.

The class std::exception and std::runtime_error both accept a string in the constructor that defines the error message returned by what(). So there is no need to define your own version of this method:

    class ParseError : public std::runtime_error
    {
        public:
            ParseError(const std::string & what, size_t line, size_t col,
                       const std::string & context = "", size_t ctx_line = -1)
                : std::runtime_error(genErrMsg(what, line, col, context, ctx_line))
            {}
        
        private:
            std::string static genErrMsg(const std::string & what, size_t line, size_t col,
                                         const std::string & context, size_t ctx_line)
            {
                std::ostringstream error;
                error << what
                      << " line " << line + 1 << " column " << col + 1
                      << " " << context;
                if (ctx_line != -1) {
                    error << " from line " << ctx_line + 1;
                }
                return error.str();
            }
    };
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1
  • \$\begingroup\$ Great! I was not quite sure how to put it together as several ways seemed to work. Your looks much cleaner, I'll use it. \$\endgroup\$
    – spectras
    Apr 14, 2017 at 17:57

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