Hi,

On Mon, Feb 08, 2021 at 06:14:44PM +0100, Florian Westphal wrote:
> Phil Sutter <phil@nwl.cc> wrote:
> > In general, shells eating the quotes is problematic and users may not be
> > aware of it. This includes scripts that mangle ruleset dumps by
> > accident, etc. (Not sure if it is really a problem as we quote some
> > strings already).
> > 
> > Using JSON, there are no such limits, BTW. I really wonder if there's
> > really no fix for bison parser to make it "context aware".
> 
> Right.  We can probably make lots of keywords available for table/chain names
> by only recognizing them while parsing rules, i.e. via 'start conditions'
> in flex.  But I don't think there is anyone with the time to do the
> needed scanner changes.

Oh, I wasn't aware of start conditions at all, thanks for the pointer.
Instead of reducing most keyword's scope to rule context, I tried a less
intrusive approach, namely recognizing "only strings plus some extra" in
certain conditions. See attached patch for reference. With it in place,
I was at least able to:

# nft add table inet table
# nft add chain inet table chain
# nft add rule inet table chain iifname rule

Cheers, Phil