Compiler fails on NamedTuple keys containing dashes

[fvirdia]

Bug Report

Trying to use a string literal as NamedTuple key fails if the literal contains a dash -.

Compiler info:

Crystal 1.12.2 [04998c0c7] (2024-05-31)

LLVM: 15.0.7
Default target: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Example code

# quoting https://crystal-lang.org/reference/1.12/syntax_and_semantics/literals/named_tuple.html
# A named tuple key can also be a string literal:
# {"this is a key": 1}

# this works
x = NamedTuple("a_b": String).new("a_b": "")
puts x

# this fails
y = NamedTuple("a-b": String).new("a-b": "")
puts y

Compiler output:

$ crystal build bug.cr 
Showing last frame. Use --error-trace for full trace.

There was a problem expanding macro 'element_type'

Code in macro 'macro_126783410818560'

 7 | "a-b": options[:"a-b"].as(typeof(element_type(a-b))),
                                      ^
Called macro defined in /usr/share/crystal/src/named_tuple.cr:715:11

 715 | private macro element_type(key)

Which expanded to:

 > 1 | x = uninitialized self
 > 2 | x[:"a - b"]
        ^
Error: missing key 'a - b' for named tuple NamedTuple("a-b": String)

[Blacksmoke16]

I think this is scoped to NamedTuple.new itself. I don't think I've ever seen someone using the constructor over the literal, which works just fine: {"a-b": ""}. We should still fix it of course, but I'd be curious to know what the use case for even having NamedTuple.new is over just using the literal...

[fvirdia]

Playing a bit with the "try it online" thingy, it seems this was working as of 1.4.1, and stopped working with 1.5.0.

[fvirdia]

I'd be curious to know what the use case for even having NamedTuple.new is over just using the literal...

inexperience with the language

[Blacksmoke16]

Prob caused by #12011.

[Blacksmoke16]

I'd be curious to know what the use case for even having NamedTuple.new is over just using the literal...

inexperience with the language

No worries, more so meant from a language perspective. I submitted a PR to fix this, but for now can just use the literal syntax if you're needing one with a hyphen.

[fvirdia]

That was quick!

I went back and looked at why I used the constructor, I think I was unsure whether I would be getting Hash(String, String). I wanted to make sure I knew the type I was instantiating. Again, at the time of stumbling across the bug (actually a week ago, it was on my todo list) I had been using crystal for about a day.

Is the literal guaranteed to always result in a NamedTuple?

[Blacksmoke16]

Is the literal guaranteed to always result in a NamedTuple?

Yes, an "object" using {} with : between key and value is a NamedTuple. E.g. {foo: "bar"}. However if you use => as the separator, you get a hash. E.g. {"foo" => "bar"}.

[fvirdia]

Thanks!