How to access nested metadata having a key with dots

[vlcinsky]

Description

My sample index.qmd:

---
title: My Page
nested:
  a.b.c:
    key: Show me
---

I would like to show the "Show me" using a shortcode.

E.g. {{< meta nested["a.b.c"]key >}}

but it fails.

My question is: is there a syntax for accessing keys, which include dot(s) in their name?

[mcanouil]

The issue is not about access to nested metadata but the fact that you are using dots in metadata keys which seems to be unsupported (kind of for obvious reasons) and that the brackets method is not supported in the shortcode. (cc @cscheid)

---
a.b.c: Show me
format: html
---

{{< meta a.b.c >}}

For this particular shortcode, the code is the following:

• quarto-cli/src/resources/filters/quarto-pre/shortcodes-handlers.lua

  Lines 169 to 201 in acddc3e

  	-- Implements reading values from document metadata
  	-- as {{< meta title >}}
  	-- or {{< meta key.subkey.subkey >}}
  	-- This only supports emitting simple types (not arrays or maps)
  	function handleMeta(args)
  	if #args > 0 then
  	-- the args are the var name
  	local varName = read_arg(args)
  	-- strip quotes if present
  	-- works around the real bug that we don't have
  	-- great control over quoting in shortcode params
  	-- see https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/issues/7882
  	if varName:sub(1,1) == '"' and varName:sub(-1) == '"' then
  	varName = varName:sub(2,-2)
  	elseif varName:sub(1,1) == "'" and varName:sub(-1) == "'" then
  	varName = varName:sub(2,-2)
  	end
  	-- read the option value
  	local optionValue = option(varName, nil)
  	if optionValue ~= nil then
  	return processValue(optionValue, varName, "meta")
  	else
  	warn("Unknown meta key " .. varName .. " specified in a metadata Shortcode.")
  	return { pandoc.Strong({pandoc.Str("?meta:" .. varName)}) }
  	end
  	else
  	-- no args, we can't do anything
  	return nil
  	end
  	end

[cscheid]

I created an issue to track #10936

[mcanouil]

@vlcinsky in the next pre-release version you will be able to access nested metadata data with dots by escaping them.
See #10936 (comment)