Adding includeFunc in controlDict crashes FoamFile serialization

[sturmk]

I'm trying to add a FOAM includeFunction in the system/controlDict:

import foamlib

controlDict = foamlib.FoamFile("./system/controlDict")
controlDict["functions"]["#includeFunc"] = "funcName"

this crashes my Python script and throws a lengthy pyparsing ParseException upon file serialization.

[gerlero]

@sturmk I'm able to reproduce the issue. To be fair, there's currently no support for directives starting with #include (they should get ignored as if they were just comments, but in this case it ends up breaking the parse).

May I ask, how would you expect your code snippet to change the file?

functions
{
    #includeFunc funcName;
}

Is that it? If so, I believe I could make a special case for #includeFunc so that this works...

[sturmk]

@gerlero Indeed, #includeFunc is an edge-case.
It is also special, in that it should NOT end the line with a semi-colon. So I'm not quite sure if there's more effort involved to make it work.

[gerlero]

What do you think of making a special case for all #-directives, so that they behave as special leaf entries that don't end at a semicolon (instead, they go until a \n)? Not really asking for you to think this through... more of thinking out loud. I think that could be a more general solution for this one.

[sturmk]

Would this mean that a user then has to enter the directive like this:
controlDict["functions"]["#includeFunc"] = "funcName\n" ?
Not sure I understood your suggestion for the line break. I'd probably prefer a solution without an explicit \n

[gerlero]

@sturmk Actually, I was thinking the \n could be added automatically.

My idea is to make a sort of special case for keywords starting with #, so that as in your example:

controlDict["functions"]["#includeFunc"] = "funcName"

directly maps to:

functions
{
    #includeFunc funcName
}

(with no semicolon at the at the end of funcName)

and vice versa.

That ideally should handle a lot of the #-stuff (notably except #codeStream, which works different and is more complex to parse).

Just as a note to myself, this would be a (small) breaking change given that #-directives are currently ignored by the parser. Not a problem though since (assuming it could be made work) it would be an improvement.

[sturmk]

@gerlero perfect!

[gerlero]

I'm trying out the change at #315, where it seems to be working.

I need to ask you, though: how bad would you need this fix to be released right now?

I ask because this repo is now under active review for JOSS at openjournals/joss-reviews#7633. So, I'd prefer to delay making any (potentially breaking) releases right now as much as possible; yet I would still consider publishing a new version now it now if a user (like you) says they'd use the new functionality now.

[sturmk]

@gerlero thank you very much! I applied the patch to my local foamlib installation; no need for a release from my side for now.

[gerlero]

@sturmk Thanks! I'll then make sure to merge the changes for the next release. Let me know if something still doesn't work.