Handling colons in extra metadata values

[samuelallan72]

From the spec:

Both key and value must consist of non-whitespace characters, which are not colons. Only one colon separates the key and value.

Why must a value not contain a colon? A colon in the value doesn't appear to introduce ambiguity. For example label:one:two can only be parsed as a tag with key label and value one:two.

How do most tools handle this case? Allow it, raise an error, treat the string as part of the description since it's an invalid tag, or only parse label:one as the key:value, and leave :two in the description?

[clach04]

@swalladge "I don't know", is my correct answer from me ;-) but some thoughts.

The spec really needs spaces in between items, it explicitly says non-whitespace so I think you run a low risk of problems if you choose to use colons in your value (you deserve headaches if using in a key 😝 ) which would technically be non-conforming.

No one has shot down your idea so might be worth opening an issue as a proposal to allow. I opened #77 as I personally think keys should not start with a number.

[samuelallan72]

Thanks, I opened a proposal at #79