Make ytt portable to windows by changing the library key constant

[joshrosso]

Describe the problem/challenge you have

I'm using ytt, as a go dependency, in a project. The binary for this project is used on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

Due the the library reference key:

https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/carvel-ytt/blob/f53bcec371800411b4b2c4f5dde2b29b0610301c/pkg/cmd/template/data_values_flags.go#L211-L213

When absolute paths are used in Windows, the C:\\ is parsed as such due to the presence of :. This breaks ytt parsing when run on a Windows workstation.

Describe the solution you'd like

To workaround this, I created a fork, which does:

https://github.com/joshrosso/carvel-ytt/commit/74085add68cc7047676ee3ea3906702de4b9490b

And it works great. While I'm not suggesting you change your key to ^ like I did, I wonder if it could be changed or some logic put in place to make this portable to windows?

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[pivotaljohn]

Thanks for the report, @joshrosso.

While I'm not suggesting you change your key to ^ like I did, I wonder if it could be changed or some logic put in place to make this portable to windows?

Yes, sir: changing the token would be a breaking change that we'd like to avoid.

Having different path parsing strategies selected by OS seems more like the way to go.

[joshrosso]

Per request in slack, this is the function that would bubble up the error[0] on windows:

https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/community-edition/blob/40beed6d3632d9c0d089fc83ceb6e1840e608e92/cli/cmd/plugin/standalone-cluster/tkr/image.go#L157-L192

[0]:

Extracting data value from file: Expected library ref to start with '@'

[ChristianCiach]

Java uses : on Linux and ; on Windows for its classpath notation. Maybe you should do the same.

See https://stackoverflow.com/a/55237119/1507544

[cari-lynn]

@joshrosso We are actively working on this now. Do you have a reproduction scenario so I can understand when this happens?

[cari-lynn]

Hey this has been fixed in #609. It has been fixed by allowing : in file paths in o.DataValuesFlags.FromFiles or --data-values-file. This will allow Windows file paths to be used. This will be available once the next release is made (v0.41.0).