bug: arrays not being returned correctly

[deadprogram]

UPDATE: arrays of any type (int, string) are not being parsed correctly for any source format: JSON, TOML, and YAML.

When trying to populate a flag containing a string array coming from a TOML file, I discovered that instead of returning a slice with one string per array item, instead it is returning a slice with a single string that contains the entire array.

I added a unit test that demonstrates the problem in a fork/branch:

$ go test ./...
ok      github.com/urfave/cli-altsrc/v3 (cached)
ok      github.com/urfave/cli-altsrc/v3/json    (cached)
--- FAIL: TestTOMLArray (0.00s)
    toml_value_source_test.go:67: 
                Error Trace:    /home/ron/Development/cli-altsrc/toml/toml_value_source_test.go:67
                Error:          Not equal: 
                                expected: []string([]string{"hello", "hi", "hola", "hej"})
                                actual  : string("[hi hello hola hej]")
                Test:           TestTOMLArray
FAIL
FAIL    github.com/urfave/cli-altsrc/v3/toml    0.008s
ok      github.com/urfave/cli-altsrc/v3/yaml    (cached)
FAIL

Here is a commit with the failing test:
hybridgroup@8d09ba6

Thanks for any help!

[deadprogram]

Additional note: I noticed that https://github.com/urfave/cli-altsrc/blob/main/toml/toml_map.go is no longer being used and should probably be removed.

[dearchap]

@deadprogram That seems to be correct. Would you like to open a PR and submit changes for this ?

[deadprogram]

@dearchap what is the correct change to be made in your opinion? I don't mind helping out if I can get pointed in the correct direction.

[dearchap]

@deadprogram Actually the behavior of toml is exactly as expected. It will return a string("[hi hello hola hej]") as a generic decode. If you specifically unmarshal it to a []string then it would give you the string slice as you want. The problem is that the string ("[hi hello hola hej]") will be set on flag and the parse will fail due to the square brackets. To overcome this we would need to update the main cli library to handle this case.

[deadprogram]

@dearchap perhaps you can then point me towards the appropriate place in the main CLI for such a change?

[dearchap]

https://github.com/urfave/cli/blob/main/flag_slice_base.go#L37

The other option is to check for slices in this library and strip away the square brackets for returning to the user.

[dearchap]

@deadprogram Actually you dont need to change the cli code. You just need to change the code here https://github.com/urfave/cli-altsrc/blob/main/altsrc.go#L118 . We are returning a string(with brackets) from a slice. What you can do is remove the brackets from string if value is a slice

[deadprogram]

You just need to change the code here https://github.com/urfave/cli-altsrc/blob/main/altsrc.go#L118 .

@dearchap I tried what you suggested, however it did not appear to work.

[dearchap]

@deadprogram Can you send a PR with the change ? We can look at it