Nested internally tagged enums wrong line report

[soywod]

Given the following nested structure (small extract from a user config):

#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct Config {
    backend: BackendConfig,
}

#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
#[serde(rename_all = "lowercase")]
enum BackendConfig {
    Imap(ImapConfig),
    Smtp(SmtpConfig),
}

#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct ImapConfig {
    auth: ImapAuthConfig,
}

#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
#[serde(rename_all = "lowercase")]
enum ImapAuthConfig {
    Password(PasswordConfig),
}

#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct SmtpConfig {
    auth: SmtpAuthConfig,
}

#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
#[serde(rename_all = "lowercase")]
enum SmtpAuthConfig {
    Password(PasswordConfig),
}

#[derive(Debug, Eq, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct PasswordConfig {
    cmd: String,
}

With externally tagged enums

The following TOML string is properly parsed:

backend.imap.auth.password.cmd = "pass show password"

But this structure "allows" users to declare multiple backends, which is not possible:

backend.imap.auth.password.cmd = "pass show password"
backend.smtp.auth.password.cmd = "pass show password"

TOML parse error at line 2, column 1
  |
2 | backend.imap.auth.password.cmd = "pass show password"
  | ^^^^^^^
wanted exactly 1 element, more than 1 element

This representation is too permissive, it is too misleading for users and the error message is not explicit.

With internally tagged enums

By adding a #[serde(tag = "type")], the following string can be parsed:

backend.type = "imap"
backend.auth.type = "password"
backend.auth.cmd = "pass show password"

But the following wrong string gives a bad information about the error position: it always points to the first enum:

backend.type = "imap"
backend.auth.type = "wrong" # < wrong type
backend.auth.cmd = "pass show password"

TOML parse error at line 2, column 1
  |
2 | backend.type = "imap"
  | ^^^^^^^
unknown variant `wrong`, expected `password` or `oauth2`

This representation is perfect for users, and is the one I would like to keep. But the error line seems broken.

With adjacently tagged enums

By adding a #[serde(tag = "type", content = "content")], the following string can be parsed:

backend.type = "imap"
backend.content.auth.type = "password"
backend.content.auth.content.cmd = "pass show password"

And the previous mistake is now well reported:

backend.type = "imap"
backend.content.auth.type = "wrong"
backend.content.auth.content.cmd = "pass show password"

TOML parse error at line 3, column 29
  |
3 | backend.content.auth.type = "wrong"
  |                             ^^^^^^^
unknown variant `wrong`, expected `password` or `oauth2`

This representation reports well wrong information, but is way too verbose for users.

---

To summarize, I would like to keep the internally tagged enum representation but the reporting seems broken. Any idea what is going on?

[epage]

This appears to be a duplicate of #535, closing in favor of that. If there is something I missed as to why this should be kept open, let us know!

[soywod]

So if I understand well the internally tagged and untagged share the same issue?

[epage]

Yes