How to validate a Map snippet in groovy - groovy

Question

I have an dynamic html file that groovy is generated from. Part of this html template format is {routeId}{groovyMap} like so
USER_FORM[name:'Dean', user:randomFunction([item:'s', day:'Tuesday'])]
or something like
USER_FORM[name: 'Dean', user: user]
I made the first example more complex. Currently, I split on ':' and validate all the keys supplied. What I would like to do is take the groovy snippet and grab all the keys and validate
1. all keys are strings
2. validate the keys against some meta data I already have
I do not care about the values at all. Currently, I split on ':' but obviously that won't work for all cases. I am worried about other complex cases I may not be thinking about.
This is for a templating engine and I prefer to failfast if possible making it easier on the user when something is wrong.

Answer 1

I concur with others that you want to avoid parsing directly.
If you use GroovyShell, you can dope the input string with no-op methodMissing and propertyMissing handlers. In this way, even the complex example will work.
See code below, including test-cases (extracting map string from the "USER_FORMstr" format is left to the reader).
class KeyGenerator {
// these could be "final static". omitted for brevity
def shell = new GroovyShell()
def methodMissingHandler = "def methodMissing(String name, args) {}"
def propertyMissingHandler = "def propertyMissing(String name) {}"
def generateKeys(mapStr) {
def evalInput = "${methodMissingHandler} ; " +
"${propertyMissingHandler} ; " +
"${mapStr}"
def map = shell.evaluate(evalInput)
return map.keySet()
}
}
// ------- main
def keyGenerator = new KeyGenerator()
def expected = new HashSet()
expected << "name"
expected << "user"
def mapStr = "[name:'Dean', user:randomFunction([item:'s', day:'Tuesday'])]"
assert expected == keyGenerator.generateKeys(mapStr)
def mapStr2 = "[name: 'Dean', user: user]"
assert expected == keyGenerator.generateKeys(mapStr2)

Answer 2

If I got you right, you can use something like:
String val = "USER_FORM[name:'Dean', user:randomFunction([item:'s', day:'Tuesday'])]"
def res = []
val.eachMatch( /[\[,] ?(\w+):/ ){ res << it[ 1 ] }
assert '[name, user, item, day]' == res.toString()

Answer 3

all keys are strings
When using the literal syntax for creating a Map, i.e.
Map m = [foo: 'bar']
as opposed to
Map m = new HashMap()
m.put('foo', 'bar')
the keys are always strings, even if you have a variable in scope with the same name as the key. For example, in the following snippet, the key will be the string 'foo', not the integer 6
def foo = 6
Map m = [foo: 'bar']
The only way you can create a Map using the literal syntax with a key that is not a string is if you have a variable in scope with the same name as the key and you wrap the key name in parentheses. For example, in the following snippet, the key will be the integer 6, not the string 'foo'
def foo = 6
Map m = [(foo): 'bar']
Currently, I split on ':' but obviously that won't work for all cases. I am worried about other complex cases I may not be thinking about.
Parsing a map literal using regex/string splitting seems like a bad idea as you'll likely end up badly re-implementing the Groovy lexer. Something like the following seems a better option
def mapString = '[foo: "bar"]'
Map map = Eval.me(mapString)
// now you can process the map via the Map interface, e.g.
map.keySet().toList() == ['foo']