From 6659932af9e1d17f2b3f3e5a41548a7c74096ca5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Marcus Noble <github@marcusnoble.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 May 2021 20:56:32 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Added post about spaces in yaml keys

---
 content/posts/yaml-key-spaces.md | 79 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 79 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 content/posts/yaml-key-spaces.md

diff --git a/content/posts/yaml-key-spaces.md b/content/posts/yaml-key-spaces.md
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/posts/yaml-key-spaces.md
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+---
+title: "YAML keys allow for spaces in them"
+date: 2021-05-11
+draft: false
+tags:
+  - yaml
+images:
+- https://opengraph.cluster.fun/opengraph/?siteTitle=Today%20I%20learnt...&title=YAML%20keys%20allow%20for%20spaces%20in%20them&tags=yaml&image=https%3A%2F%2Fmarcusnoble.co.uk%2Fimages%2Fmarcus.jpg&twitter=Marcus_Noble_&github=AverageMarcus&website=www.MarcusNoble.co.uk
+---
+
+While browsing through some of [Frenck's](https://github.com/frenck) [Home Assistant Config](https://github.com/frenck/home-assistant-config) for ideas I came across [this interesting line of YAML](https://github.com/frenck/home-assistant-config/blob/a963e1cb3e2acf7beda2b466b334218ac27ee42f/config/integrations/automation.yaml#L7):
+
+```yaml
+---
+# This handles the loading of my automations
+#
+# https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/automation/
+#
+automation: !include ../automations.yaml
+automation split: !include_dir_list ../automations    # <--
+```
+
+I found myself staring at this for a while, followed by searching the [Home Assistant](https://www.home-assistant.io/) documentation website to see if `split` was a special keyword I wasn't aware of.
+
+And then it dawned on me! As all JSON is valid YAML, and JSON keys can be pretty much any string it makes sense that YAML supports it.
+
+The above example converted to JSON using [json2yaml](https://www.json2yaml.com/convert-yaml-to-json) looks like this:
+
+```json
+{
+  "automation": "../automations.yaml",
+  "automation split": "../automations"
+}
+```
+
+Knowing this, I decided to try out a few more variations to see what works...
+
+YAML:
+```yaml
+---
+123: Valid
+---: also valid
+5.5: yup! this too
+#how about this?: nope, this is treated as a comment
+//: yeah, totally valid
+✨: yep!
+[1]: Works
+[1, 2]: Still works, treated as string
+{another}: This one is interesting
+```
+
+JSON:
+```json
+{
+  "123": "Valid",
+  "---": "also valid",
+  "5.5": "yup! this too",
+  "//": "yeah, totally valid",
+  "✨": "yep!",
+  "[1]": "Works",
+  "[1, 2]": "Still works, treated as string",
+  "{\"another\"=>nil}": "This one is interesting"
+}
+```
+
+Depending on the library used, varying results can be generated. For example, [yamlonline](https://yamlonline.com/) returns the following for the same input:
+
+```json
+{
+	"1": "Works",
+	"123": "Valid",
+	"---": "also valid",
+	"5.5": "yup! this too",
+	"//": "yeah, totally valid",
+	"✨": "yep!",
+	"1,2": "Still works, treated as string",
+	"[object Object]": "This one is interesting"
+}
+```