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Empty values are not removed by endpoints #39
Description
I think we've noticed a behavior which is not backward compatible with endpoints v1.
In v1, when the app is deployed (does not happen on the dev server), all empty values (None, (), {}, []) are removed from messages by the endpoints lib.
For instance :
d = {}
d['first'] = 'one'
d['two'] = {}
is transformed in {"first": "one"} in v1 and in {"first": "one", "two": {}} in v2.
Is this by design or is it a bug that will be fixed?
Here is the monkey patch we use:
from protorpc.protojson import MessageJSONEncoder
endpoints_original_method = MessageJSONEncoder.default
def del_none(d):
"""
Delete keys with the value ``None`` in a dictionary, recursively.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4255400/exclude-empty-null-values-from-json-serialization
This alters the input so you may wish to ``copy`` the dict first.
Args:
d: the value to remove empty values from.
"""
if isinstance(d, dict):
for key, value in d.items():
if value in (None, [], (), {}, ):
del d[key]
elif isinstance(value, dict):
del_none(value)
return d
def default(self, value):
"""
Monkey patch the SDK method to remove empty values.
Replicate the behavior of the prod endpoints.
Args:
value: Value to get dictionary for.
"""
return del_none(endpoints_original_method(self, value))
MessageJSONEncoder.default = defaultMetadata
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bradfriedman commentedon Feb 1, 2017
Does this behavior persist if you assign an empty list or tuple? Looking through the code, it appears that the intent is to remove NoneType values and empty lists/tuples, but not empty dicts. However, if the v1 behavior was to remove empty dicts as well, I can continue to look into this. Thanks!
emelois commentedon Feb 2, 2017
You're right, it seems to be the case only for empty dicts. I confirm that they were removed in v1.
nilleb commentedon Nov 8, 2017
@bradfriedman anything new on this?
inklesspen commentedon Nov 8, 2017
Brad is no longer on the team.
nilleb commentedon Nov 8, 2017
inklesspen commentedon Nov 8, 2017
I have only just seen this issue. I will look into it.
lcasartelli commentedon Dec 9, 2017
+1 any news on this? I am experiencing the same behavior.