using eval in groovy

Question

How can I use eval in groovy to evaluate the following String:

{key1=keyval, key2=[listitem1, listitem2], key3=keyval2}

All the list items and keyval is a String.

doing Eval.me("{key1=keyval, key2=[listitem1, listitem2], key3=keyval2}") is giving me the following error:

Ambiguous expression could be either a parameterless closure expression or an isolated open code block; solution: Add an explicit closure parameter list, e.g. {it -> ...}, or force it to be treated as an open block by giving it a label, e.g. L:{...} at

I want to get HashMap

Answer 1

Is there no way you can get the data in JSON format? Then you could just use one of the parsers mentioned here.

Answer 2

You can parse that string by translating some of the characters, and writing your own binding to return variable names when Groovy tries to look them up, like so:

class Evaluator extends Binding {
  def parse( s ) {
    GroovyShell shell = new GroovyShell( this );
    shell.evaluate( s )
  }
  Object getVariable( String name ) { name }
}

def inStr = '{key1=keyval, key2=[listitem1, listitem2], key3=keyval2}'
def inObj = new Evaluator().parse( inStr.tr( '{}=', '[]:' ) )

println inObj

But this is a very brittle solution, and getting the data in a friendlier format (as suggested by @Stefan) is definitely the best way to go...