```qmd
---
title: "Quarto Playground"
format: html
---

This is a playground for Quarto.

{{< meta title>}}
```

In 1.3, the above code would compile without complaining about the malformed shortcode and does nothing.
In 1.4, it produces an error[^1] that is a bit mysterious and could be improved.

```txt
Error running Lua:
...arto-cli/src/resources//pandoc/datadir/lpegshortcode.lua:111: attempt to concatenate a nil value
stack traceback:
        [C]: in function 'lpeg.match'
        ...s/quarto/quarto-cli/src/resources/filters/qmd-reader.lua:116: in function 'parse_shortcodes'
        ...s/quarto/quarto-cli/src/resources/filters/qmd-reader.lua:133: in function 'Reader'
ERROR: Error
    at renderFiles (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/command/render/render-files.ts:539:23)
    at eventLoopTick (ext:core/01_core.js:181:11)
    at async render (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/command/render/render-shared.ts:97:18)
    at async renderForPreview (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/command/preview/preview.ts:430:24)
    at async render (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/command/preview/preview.ts:189:22)
    at async preview (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/command/preview/preview.ts:206:18)
    at async Command.fn (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/command/preview/cmd.ts:356:7)
    at async Command.execute (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/vendor/deno.land/x/cliffy@v0.25.4/command/command.ts:1790:7)
    at async quarto (file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/quarto.ts:122:3)
    at async file:///Users/mcanouil/Projects/quarto/quarto-cli/src/quarto.ts:154:5
```

[^1]: Better than previous behaviour in my opinion.
cscheid
2023-05-14T17:19:05Z
mcanouil
enhancement
v1.4
open
Improve error message on malformed shortcodes in 1.4
https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/issues/5535