My server returns a list of objects in JSON. They might be Cats or Dogs, for example.
When I know that they'll all be Cats, I can set the AutoBeanCodex to work easily. When I don't know what types they are, though... what should I do?
I could give all of my entities a type field, but then I'd have to parse each entity before passing it to the AutoBeanCodex, which borders on defeating the point. What other options do I have?
Just got to play with this the other day, and fought it for a few hours, trying #Category methods and others, until I found this: You can create a property of type Splittable, which represents the underlying transport type that has some encoding for booleans/Strings/Lists/Maps. In my case, I know some enveloping type that goes over the wire at design time, and based on some other property, some other field can be any number of other autobeans.
You don't even need to know the type of the other bean at compile time, you could get values out using Splittable's methods, but if using autobeans anyway, it is nice to define the data that is wrapped.
interface Envelope {
String getStatus();
String getDataType();
Splittable getData();
}
(Setters might be desired if you sending data as well as recieving - encoding a bean into a `Splittable to send it in an envelope is even easier than decoding it)
The JSON sent over the wire is decoded (probably using AutoBeanCodex) into the Envelope type, and after you've decided what type must be coming out of the getData() method, call something like this to get the nested object out
SpecificNestedBean bean = AutoBeanCodex.decode(factory,
SpecificNestedBean.class,
env.getData()).as();
The Envelope type and the nested types (in factory above) don't even need to be the same AutoBeanFactory type. This could allow you to abstract out the reading/writing of envelopes from the generic transport instance, and use a specific factory for each dataType string property to decode the data's model (and nested models).
Related
I am trying to use the Mapper codec in my connectivity chain to convert a JSON object that looks like this:
{"test2":[
["column1","column2","column3"],
["16091", "449", "05302018"],
["16092", "705", "05302018"]
]}
to an EPL type. To me it looks like a sequence of sequences, so I used
event test1 {
sequence<string> values;
}
event test2 {
sequence<test1> tests;
}
But this gives me the error
Unable to parse event test.1: Incorrect type in get (you asked for map but its' actually list)
Any ideas how I should be using the Mapper codec to this end?
Unless explicitly remapped, that won't quite work. You have to consider the entire structure of the document from top to bottom. It's not a sequence of strings - it's a JSON object/dictionary at top-level, with a value that is a sequence of sequences of string.
A JSON object/dictionary can map to an event type based on field names. So as Matt's answer said, a JSON document like yours would need an event type like
event SomeEventType {
sequence<sequence<string > > test2;
}
If it's not appropriate to create an event type that exactly corresponds to the JSON document's structure, then you'll need to use the mapping codec to rearrange the fields in the JSON document to match the fields and sub-fields in an event type. Or possibly a custom codec; I think Matt's right that the mapper can't do exactly what you want.
Further, because JSON documents are type-less at the top-level, you'll need to make sure that the event type is defined somehow. There are multiple ways of doing that.
(1) If this particular connectivity will only send you events of one type, you can use the 'defaultEventType' configuration option of the apama.eventMap host plug-in at the top of your chain e.g.
apama.eventMap:
defaultEventMap: SomeEventType
(2) If it depends on the structure of the document, you'll need to use the classifier codec. That can take a message going towards the correlator, and assign it an event type based on the content of fields (or simply their presence). You can learn about it in the documentation.
(3) The transport will sometimes define it on messages being sent towards the correlator. For example, in the case of the Universal Messaging transport, then the 'tag' of the UM event will be used as the type. This may or may not be appropriate.
If you do end up doing anything non-trivial with the classifier or mapper, I'd strongly recommend use of the 'diagnostic codec' to help in developing the classifier or mapper rules. This is a codec you can put anywhere in the chain of codecs that will log every event going through it, so you can see how your rules are operating by seeing what happens before and after classification/mapping. You can read about it in the documentation, but it's usually as simple as putting '- diagnosticCodec' somewhere in your chain. I've found it absolutely invaluable when debugging connectivity chains.
you want your event type to look like:
event type1 {
sequence<sequence<string> > data;
}
it's not possible in the mapper directly to convert to your type2/type1 schema, but you'd be able to write your own codec to do that or do post-filtering in EPL.
HTH,
Matt
I am building a REST API which creates a resource. The resource has only one attribute which is a rather long and unique string. I am planning to send this data to the API as JSON. I see two choices for modeling the data as JSON
A primitive JSON String data type
A JSON object with one String attribute.
Both the options work.
Which of these two options is preferred for this context? And why?
Basic Answer for Returning
I would personally use option 2, which is: `A JSON object with one String attribute.'
Also, in terms of design: I prefer to return an object, that has a key/value. The key is also a name that provides context as to what has been returned.
Returning just a string, basically a "" or {""} lacks that context ( the name of the returned variable.
Debate: Are primitive Strings Json Objects?
There seems to be also some confusion as to if a String by itself is a valid JSON document.
This confusion and debate, are quite evident in the following posts where various technical specs are mentioned: Is a primitive type considered JSON?
The only thing for sure is that a JSON object with a key-value pair is definitely valid!
As to a string by itself.. I'm not sure ( requires more reading).
Update: Answer In terms of creating/updating an entity (Post/Put)
In the specific case above, relating to such a large string that "runs into a few kilobytes"... my feeling is that this would be included within the request body.
In the specific context of sending data, I would actually be comfortable with using either 1 or 2. Additionally, 1 seems more optimized ( if your frameworks support it), since the context about what the data is, is related to the rest API method.
However, if in the future you need to add one more parameter, you will have to use a JSON entity with more than one key.
Given: I have two structs of the same type, conforming to Codable Protocol.
The structs can be multi-level (nested properties, surely also are conforming to Codable). The type is not known at the time of implementation, so i consider it generic, conforming to Codable.
One object is "base" (say, received from server), second (actually the copy of "base"), but modified inside application.
The intention is: To send a request for saving new data, but sending only the "diff" of two structs. So, only the fields, that are different should be present in resulting JSON.
The straightforward way with getting JSON strings for both structs and manipulating with them, is understandable, but seem to be the last-chance approach...
I've tried the approach with Mirror, and recursion, but now have managed to make it work only for first level - on the second level of nesting i've lost the type of nested property (if struct or array), and cannot cast it right then...
I wonder if it can be made somehow with custom encoder?
P.S.: the generic type should have all properties as Optionals, so should not provide any explicit initializers.
Instead of your "last-chance approach" -- matching JSON strings -- you could use JSONSerialization.jsonObject to convert the JSON data to Foundation objects and perform your comparison on that higher level of abstraction (if that's what you meant in your question in the first place, then sorry - nevermind).
Of course you'd pay an extra penalty of converting your Codable objects to data and then parsing that data into an object hierarchy.
I have a Typescript app. I use the localstorage for development purpose to store my objects and I have the problem at the deserialization.
I have an object meeting of type MeetingModel:
export interface MeetingModel {
date: moment.Moment; // from the library momentjs
}
I store this object in the localStorage using JSON.stringify(meeting).
I suppose that stringify call moment.toJson(), that returns an iso string, hence the value stored is: {"date":"2016-12-26T15:03:54.586Z"}.
When I retrieve this object, I do:
const stored = window.localStorage.getItem("meeting");
const meeting: MeetingModel = JSON.parse(stored);
The problem is: meeting.date contains a string instead of a moment !
So, first I'm wondering why TypeScript let this happen ? Why can I assign a string value instead of a Moment and the compiler agree ?
Second, how can I restore my objects from plain JSON objects (aka strings) into Typescript types ?
I can create a factory of course, but when my object database will grow up it will be a pain in the *** to do all this work.
Maybe there is a solution for better storing in the local storage in the first place?
Thank you
1) TypeScript is optionally typed. That means there are ways around the strictness of the type system. The any type allows you to do dynamic typing. This can come in very handy if you know what you are doing, but of course you can also shoot yourself in the foot.
This code will compile:
var x: string = <any> 1;
What is happening here is that the number 1 is casted to any, which to TypeScript means it will just assume you as a developer know what it is and how you to use it. Since the any type is then assigned to a string TypeScript is absolutely fine with it, even though you are likely to get errors during run-time, just like when you make a mistake when coding JavaScript.
Of course this is by design. TypeScript types only exist during compile time. What kind of string you put in JSON.parse is unknowable to TypeScript, because the input string only exists during run-time and can be anything. Hence the any type. TypeScript does offer so-called type guards. Type guards are bits of code that are understood during compile-time as well as run-time, but that is beyond the scope of your question (Google it if you're interested).
2) Serializing and deserializing data is usually not as simple as calling JSON.stringify and JSON.parse. Most type information is lost to JSON and typically the way you want to store objects (in memory) during run-time is very different from the way you want to store them for transfer or storage (in memory, on disk, or any other medium). For instance, during run-time you might need lookup tables, user/session state, private fields, library specific properties, while in storage you might want version numbers, timestamps, metadata, different types of normalization, etc. You can JSON.stringify anything you want in JavaScript land, but that does necessarily mean it is a good idea. You might want to design how you actually store data. For example, an iso string looks pretty, but takes a lot of bytes. If you have just a few that does not matter, but when you are transferring millions a second you might want to consider another format.
My advise to you would be to define interfaces for the objects you want to save and like moment create a .toJson method on your model object, which will return the DTO (Data Transfer Object) that you can simply serialize with JSON.stringify. Then on the way back you cast the any output of JSON.parse to your DTO and then convert it back to your model with a factory function or constructor of your creation. That might seem like a lot of boilerplate, but in my experience it is totally worth it, because now you are in control of what gets stored and that gives you a lot of flexility to change your model without getting deserialization problems.
Good luck!
You could use the reviver feature of JSON.parse to convert the string back to a moment:
JSON.parse(input, (key, value) => {
if (key == "date") {
return parseStringAsMoment(value);
} else {
return value;
});
Check browser support for reviver, though, as it's not the same as basic JSON.parse
I'm trying to parse a grails parameter map to a Json String, and then back to a parameter map. (For saving html form entries with constraint-violations)
Everything is fine as long as there is no hasMany relationship in the parameter-map.
I'm using
fc.parameter = params as JSON
to save the params as JSON String.
Later I'm trying to rebuild the parameter map and create a new Domain-Object with it:
new Foo(JSON.parse(fc.parameter))
Everything is fine using only 1:1 relationships (states).
[states:2, listSize:50, name:TestFilter]
But when I try to rebuild a params-map with multi-select values (states)
[states:[1,2], listSize:50, name:TestFilter]
I'm getting this IllegalStateException:
Failed to convert property value of type org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.json.JSONArray to required type java.util.Set for property states; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot convert value of type [java.lang.String] to required type [de.gotosec.approve.State] for property states[0]: no matching editors or conversion strategy found
I tried to use this, but without success:
JSON.use("deep") {
new Foo(JSON.parse(fc.parameter))
}
You can use JsonSlurper instead of the converters.JSON of grails, it maps JSON objects to Groovy Maps. I think this link also might help you.
Edit: Now, if the problem is binding the params map to your domain, you should try using bindData() method, like:
bindData(foo, params)
Note that this straightforward use is only if you're calling bindData inside a controller.
What seems to be happening in your case is that Grails is trying to bind a concrete type of List (ArrayList in the case of JsonSlurper and JSONArray in the case of converters.JSON) into a Set of properties (which is the default data structure for one-to-many associations). I would have to take a look at your code to confirm that. But, as you did substitute states: [1,2] for a method of your app, try another test to confirm this hypothesis. Change:
states:[1,2]
for
states:[1,2] as Set
If this is really the problem and not even bindData() works, take a look at this for a harder way to make it work using object marshalling and converters.JSON. I don't know if it's practical for you to use it in your project, but it sure works nicely ;)