Can't a `KSerializer` do some look-ahead for the n...

# serialization

[Marc Knaup]

Can't a KSerializer do some look-ahead for the next token type when reading something?
E.g.
• if next token is string then decode as A
• if next token is object then decode as B

[sandwwraith]

In general – no (some formats don't support this). If you know which decoder you use in advance, you can downcast to it in deserialize

[Marc Knaup]

A the moment I'm using decodeString guarded with a try catch and upon exception I try to decode an object instead.

Do you happen to have an example for a format which doesn't know the type of the current token/value?

[Marc Knaup]

Btw even the json decoder doesn't let me peek at the next type

[sandwwraith]

E.g. protobuf have the same 'wire type' for strings/objects/bytearrays

[sandwwraith]

JsonInput have method decodeJson which allows to consume current node of the tree (primitive/array/object)

[Marc Knaup]

Yeah I don't want to fully decode it into a JsonElement though but continue with stream & decoder based parsing. I need to parse the object somehow with other serializers :)