Keywords are not converted to strings when used as map values

[ozanmakes]

I'm getting Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: error setting string field foo to :bar, compiling:(client.clj:12:10) when I try to pass a map containing keyword values to protobuf without converting them to strings first.

[amalloy]

Well, yeah. Keywords aren't strings. Is it an advertised feature somewhere in the docs? If so, we'll look into it; otherwise, I don't know why you'd expect it to work, any more than you'd expect us to automatically convert "5" to 5 when writing to a numeric field.

[ozanmakes]

@amalloy It looks like protobuf treats all of the following the same

(protobuf User :name "Guest")
(protobuf User 'name "Guest" )
(protobuf User "name" "Guest" )

Since there doesn't seem to be a way to pass keyword values to protobuf (unlike 5), and Clojure usually implements keywords as strings on platforms they are not supported (like ClojureScript) I think it makes sense to convert them to strings instead of disallowing their usage as values entirely (maybe I'm missing an extension?) and forcing the user to convert them manually even when they are used in maps in a idiomatic way.

[amalloy]

They're not disallowed; if you have a fixed set of possible values, you can define a protobuf enum, and use keywords to represent them in clojure. Using keywords to represent arbitrary strings is not recommended, in protobuf or in clojure.

[ozanmakes]

@amalloy hmm since the values I'm using are not arbitrary, I was actually going to define them in an enum after I complete the specification but I got carried away and forgot my actual intention. Makes a lot of sense, sorry!

[ozanmakes]

@amalloy by the way, does protobuf do any conversion between :keyword-values and the names that can be used in protocol buffer enums?