Yaml.rb and YAML "%" directives

I’m new to Ruby, and it really is fun. Right now, I’m playing with
YAML…

…but one part of yaml.rb doesn’t seem to work–it doesn’t seem to
recognize any % directives
(http://yaml.org/spec/current.html#id2523453) like “%YAML 1.1” or
“%TAG ! tag:blah.com,2007:”.

Why might it not be working?

I’m using Ubuntu Dapper, Ruby v1.8.4. The versions of yaml and syck
I’m using are the ones that came with Ruby/Ubuntu.

Thanks in advance,
Joshua Choi

(My test case is from the YAML 1.1 spec:

%TAG ! tag:clarkevans.com,2002:
— !shape

Use the ! handle for presenting

tag:clarkevans.com,2002:circle

  • !circle
    center: &ORIGIN {x: 73, y: 129}
    radius: 7
  • !line
    start: *ORIGIN
    finish: { x: 89, y: 102 }
  • !label
    start: *ORIGIN
    color: 0xFFEEBB
    text: Pretty vector drawing.

And if I do this:
require ‘yaml’
dump = YAML.load(…what’s above…)
puts dump.to_yaml

…it prints:

“%TAG ! tag:clarkevans.com,2002”:

Apparently, it’s interpreting the top line as a string instead of a
directive; the rest of the document was cut off by the top “—”.

It works if the top line isn’t there or is below the “—”, and it
doesn’t work if there’s any line starting with “%” above “—” ; if
it’s below “—”, it gets interpreted as a string.)

On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 11:29:20AM +0900, Joshua Choi wrote:

I’m new to Ruby, and it really is fun. Right now, I’m playing with YAML…

…but one part of yaml.rb doesn’t seem to work–it doesn’t seem to
recognize any % directives
(http://yaml.org/spec/current.html#id2523453) like “%YAML 1.1” or
“%TAG ! tag:blah.com,2007:”.

Why might it not be working?

Okay, so, the reason is: Ruby’s builtin YAML library only does YAML
1.0 documents. I’m afraid I haven’t worked on 1.1 support yet. So
try the “Last Call” spec. If you’re having a hard time with
anything else, please send me word!

_why