From: Greg McIntyre <greg@...>
Date: 2003-10-06T20:41:27+09:00
Subject: YAML serialisation problem

Can somebody tell me why the following code snippet fails?

---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---

class Parent
    def initialize
        @x = 5
        @child = Child.new(self)
    end
end

class Child
    def initialize(parent)
        @parent = parent     # <-- try commenting out this line
    end
end

require 'pp'
require 'yaml'

parent = Parent.new
parent_yaml = parent.to_yaml
puts parent_yaml
# --- &id001 !ruby/object:Parent 
# child: !ruby/object:Child 
#   parent: *id001
# x: 5
parent2 = YAML.load(parent_yaml)
pp parent2

fail if parent.class != parent2.class

---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---

It seems YAML works fine for serialising the Parent object _unless_ the
child references it, in which case it looks like the &id001 at the root
of the YAML document throws off the attempt to read it back in as a
Parent and for some reason it resorts to reading it in as a Hash.

What am I doing wrong?