Python return values on error

[sykhro]

I'm using ryml on Python.
On failure (non-existant node) the API returns -1. But the values returned by the index API are unsigned, so I actually get 18446744073709551615.
Am I missing something?

[biojppm]

Can you give a concrete example?

[sykhro]

I'm parsing yml from test262.

---
es5id: 10.6-10-c-ii-1-s
description: >
    arguments[i] remains same after changing actual parameters in
    strict mode
flags: [onlyStrict]
---

Sometimes, this yaml fragment includes a key called negative which indicates something that I must handle in my program.
So what I do is

tree = ryml.parse_in_arena(THAT_YAML_STRING)
is_negative_key_present = tree.find_child(0, b"negative") != ctypes.c_uint64(-1).value

I must compare the result with ctypes.c_uint64(-1).value because find_child() is going to return 18446744073709551615

[biojppm]

Apologies for the late reply, github's notifications are broken for me.

Indeed on the C++ side, ryml uses size_t(-1) to signify a null index. This is unsigned, and its value will be different in 32bit and 64bit, and it will be the maximum value of size_t. This symbol is named ryml::NONE, and the value you see is on a 64bit environment. So note that in python you should compare against ryml.NONE instead of the actual value, because that value may differ depending on the running environment.