2 files changed, 35 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/src/core/common/VariantReader.cpp b/src/core/common/VariantReader.cpp
index faad40c..bded618 100644
--- a/src/core/common/VariantReader.cpp
+++ b/src/core/common/VariantReader.cpp
@@ -618,8 +618,22 @@ std::pair<bool, Variant> VariantReader::parseGenericToken(
 		v.setMagic(res.second.c_str());
 		return std::make_pair(res.first, v);
 	} else {
-		return std::make_pair(res.first, Variant{res.second.c_str()});
+		return std::make_pair(res.first, Variant::fromString(res.second));
 	}
 }
+
+std::pair<bool, Variant> VariantReader::parseGenericString(
+    const std::string &str, Logger &logger)
+{
+	CharReader reader{str};
+	LoggerFork loggerFork = logger.fork();
+	std::pair<bool, Variant> res =
+	    parseGenericToken(reader, loggerFork, std::unordered_set<char>{}, true);
+	if (reader.atEnd()) {
+		loggerFork.commit();
+		return res;
+	}
+	return std::make_pair(true, Variant::fromString(str));
+}
 }
 
diff --git a/src/core/common/VariantReader.hpp b/src/core/common/VariantReader.hpp
index abf529c..8aaffd8 100644
--- a/src/core/common/VariantReader.hpp
+++ b/src/core/common/VariantReader.hpp
@@ -229,6 +229,26 @@ public:
 	    CharReader &reader, Logger &logger,
 	    const std::unordered_set<char> &delims,
 	    bool extractUnescapedStrings = false);
+
+	/**
+	 * Tries to parse the most specific item from the given string. The
+	 * resulting variant represents the value that has been read. If the end of
+	 * the string was not reached while parsing an element, the result is
+	 * returned as string.
+	 *
+	 * @param str is the string from which the value should be read.
+	 * @param logger is the logger instance to which errors or warnings will be
+	 * written.
+	 * @return a pair indicating whether the operation was successful and the
+	 * extracted variant value. Note that the variant value most times contains
+	 * some meaningful data that can be worked with even if the operation was
+	 * not successful (e.g. if a syntax error is encountered while reading an
+	 * array, the successfully read elements will still be in the returned
+	 * variant.) Information on why the operation has failed is passed to the
+	 * logger.
+	 */
+	static std::pair<bool, Variant> parseGenericString(
+	    const std::string &str, Logger &logger);
 };
 }