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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-1521?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel
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John Karp updated AVRO-1521:
----------------------------
Description:
The perl boolean serialization code in BinaryEncoder.pm encodes anything false
to perl, such as 0, '0', '', () and undef, as false, and anything true to perl,
which is literally everything else, as true.
Inconsistent with the above serialization, the code used in Schema.pm to
determine which union branch to use, is checking for boolean-ness with:
{noformat}
m{yes|no|y|n|t|f|true|false}i
{noformat}
meaning only those particular strings are considered booleans.
So all those values, including 'no' 'n' 'f' and 'false', still get serialized
to true.
We could just standardize on one of the two and use it consistently. But
neither works that well in unions, because unless you put the boolean type last
in the union definition, a wide variety of data will be downcast to boolean
type.
Perl has no built-in or standardized boolean type, so there's no solution like
we have in the other language Avro APIs. But we could do as the perl JSON
module does, and define objects for true and false.
was:
h1. Boolean Serialization
The boolean serialization code in BinaryEncoder.pm is:
{noformat}
$data ? \0x1 : \0x0
{noformat}
intending that anything false to perl, such as 0, '0', '', () and undef are
encoded as zero, and everything else is encoded as one. However, this code
doesn't work, as these unit tests would indicate:
{noformat}
primitive_ok boolean => 0, "\x0";
primitive_ok boolean => 1, "\x1";
{noformat}
which print:
{noformat}
# Failed test 'primitive boolean encoded correctly'
# at t/02_bin_encode.t line 40.
# got: '30'
# expected: '00'
# Failed test 'primitive boolean encoded correctly'
# at t/02_bin_encode.t line 40.
# got: '31'
# expected: '01'
{noformat}
h1. Booleans in Unions
Inconsistent with the above serialization, the code used in Schema.pm to
determine which union branch to use, is attempting to check for boolean-ness
with:
{noformat}
m{yes|no|y|n|t|f|true|false}i
{noformat}
meaning only those particular strings are considered booleans, however they
will all get encoded as '0' by BinaryEncoder.pm.
I say 'attempts' because its actually matching this regex against the data type
name $type, which in this context will always be 'boolean', instead of of the
value $data.
h1. Suggested Fix
Perl has no boolean type, so there's no ideal solution for the inconsistency.
But we could keep it simple, and have only the numbers 0 and 1 accepted as
boolean values.
> Inconsistent behavior of Perl API with 'boolean' type
> -----------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: AVRO-1521
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-1521
> Project: Avro
> Issue Type: Bug
> Components: perl
> Reporter: John Karp
> Assignee: John Karp
>
> The perl boolean serialization code in BinaryEncoder.pm encodes anything
> false to perl, such as 0, '0', '', () and undef, as false, and anything true
> to perl, which is literally everything else, as true.
> Inconsistent with the above serialization, the code used in Schema.pm to
> determine which union branch to use, is checking for boolean-ness with:
> {noformat}
> m{yes|no|y|n|t|f|true|false}i
> {noformat}
> meaning only those particular strings are considered booleans.
> So all those values, including 'no' 'n' 'f' and 'false', still get serialized
> to true.
> We could just standardize on one of the two and use it consistently. But
> neither works that well in unions, because unless you put the boolean type
> last in the union definition, a wide variety of data will be downcast to
> boolean type.
> Perl has no built-in or standardized boolean type, so there's no solution
> like we have in the other language Avro APIs. But we could do as the perl
> JSON module does, and define objects for true and false.
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