cet-is » fhicl » fhicl-cpp

The Prettifier class is a private class of fhicl::ParameterSet. Its purpose is to provide an std::string-rendered value of an in-memory ParameterSet object. The Prettifier::operator() function is a recursive algorithm that relies on many conditional statements in order to provide the desired result. The format of the printout looks like:

table0: { atom: value
        }
table1: { table2: { seq: [ 1
                         , 2
                         , 3
                         ]
                    seq1: []
                    seq2: [ 11 ]
                  }
        }
table2: {}

Such a printout is not necessarily easy to parse, and achieving such a printout is cumbersome. I suggest deprecating this function in favor of something easier to maintain, using the new ParameterSet::walk_ algorithm. An easier-to-maintain format would be:

table0: { 
   atom: value
}
table1: { 
   table2: { 
      seq: [ 
         1,
         2,
         3
      ]
      seq1: []
      seq2: [
         11
      ]
   }
}
table2: {}

Such a layout could be improved, but it should be done so in a way that's easier to support than the current algorithm.