Meme transcription: Panel 1. Two images of JSON, one is the empty object, one is an object in which the key name maps to the value null. Caption: “Corporate needs you to find the difference between this picture and this picture”

Panel 2. The Java backend dev answers, “They’re the same picture.”

  • Excel@lemmy.megumin.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    If you’re branching logic due to the existence or non-existence of a field rather than the value of a field (or treating undefined different from null), I’m going to say you’re the one doing something wrong, not the Java dev.

    These two things SHOULD be treated the same by anybody in most cases, with the possible exception of rejecting the later due to schema mismatch (i.e. when a “name” field should never be defined, regardless of the value).

    • paholg@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      42
      ·
      3 months ago

      They’re semantically different for PATCH requests. The first does nothing, the second should unset the name field.

      • expr@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        Only if using JSON merge patch, and that’s the only time it’s acceptable. But JSON patch should be preferred over JSON merge patch anyway.

        Servers should accept both null and undefined for normal request bodies, and clients should treat both as the same in responses. API designers should not give each bespoke semantics.

        • arendjr@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          3 months ago

          JSON patch is a dangerous thing to use over a network. It will allow you to change things inside array indices without knowing whether the same thing is still at that index by the time the server processes your request. That’s a recipe for race conditions.

          • expr@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            3 months ago

            That’s what the If-Match header is for. It prevents this problem.

            That being said, I generally think PUTs are preferable to PATCHes for simplicity.

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          3 months ago

          Why?

          Because Java struggles with basic things?

          It’s absurd to send that much data on every patch request, to express no more information, but just to appease the shittiness of Java.