Item12100: Returned META not clean

After

• my ($meta, $topicText) = Foswiki::Func::readTopic( $w, $t );

Then the resulting META can have repeated elements, e.g. any META:TYPE without a name should only appear once, but if the data contains two:

META:TOPICINFO{author="FRED" date="1234"}
META:TOPICINFO(author="BILL" date="3456"}

Then the relevant array will hold two entries. Yes after careful reading of the docs/code etc you realise that array[0] is the correct one, but why pass on the broken-ness?

Are there compatibility issues that require this broken-ness? If so, then an extra function to clean up meta would be an option. Either way the clean meta should also honour Foswiki::Meta::VALIDATE

-- JulianLevens - 26 Sep 2012

META:TOPICINFO is also a more complicated case. we (by convention) only parse it if its the first line in the file - otherwise, its ignored for META and left in.

other META:TYPES can have repeated elements, and yes, I'm working on simplifying this, but compatibility first.

I was going to remove it, but I found some plugins that use the array nature, so clearly we have to use the deprecation process instead.

(so, bad example, but yup.)

-- SvenDowideit - 27 Sep 2012

When uploading data in Versatile I only take array[0] for non-named META (which includes TOPICPARENT and FORM even though they have a name).

Are you saying that I need to store array[1..n] if found or I'll lose stuff that some plugins expect to exist? Or are some plugins not calling the relevant API and referring to array[0] directly?

-- JulianLevens - 27 Sep 2012

yes, some plugins use meta->find and putAll - One published plugin that appears to use some of the API is WorkFlowPlugin, so that may be a useful test point.

As usual, I'm much more worried about inhouse non-published plugins :/

-- SvenDowideit - 28 Sep 2012

See also Item12123

-- JulianLevens - 08 Oct 2012

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