On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 6:44 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 11/11/2013 05:48 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea wrote:
>> Hi devs,
>>
>> I just reported http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XCOMMONS-494 . It seems
>> the following generates a NPE:
>>
>> $escapetool.url({
>> 'foo': $null,
>> 'bar': ['one', $null, 'three'],
>> $null: 'value'
>> })
>>
>> I see 3 possible results:
>>
>> (1) Skip null parameter key and value
>>
>> bar=one&bar=three
>>
>> (2) Use 'null' for both the key and the value
>>
>> foo=null&bar=one&bar=null&bar=three&null=value
>>
>> (3) Use empty string for null value
>>
>> foo=&bar=one&bar=&bar=three&null=value
>>
>> I'm going to implement (1) if no one is against it.
>
> It is legal to have parameters without values, like ?foo&bar=baz, and
> this signifies that a parameter is present, although it's exact value is
> irrelevant, it's just a marker for something. So I'd say that a null
> value should output just the key.
>
> If that null is part of a longer list of values, is it important to
> represent each null? Possibly, if the presence of nulls in the array of
> values is meaningful. But back on the server, reading such a parameter
> outputs an empty string instead of null, so it's not idempotent; we'd be
> replacing nulls with empty strings. Anyway, an empty string is better
> than a "null" string which could actually mean something.
>
> A null key, on the other hand, looks like an error. Without the proper
> key, the value is not that valuable (pun intended). What's it supposed
> to represent? So a null key should be skipped (right now it's included
> in the output, and it uses "null" as the key name).
>
> So, in conclusion, I vote for:
>
(4) Skip null keys and use empty string for null value.
> (4) foo&bar=one&bar&bar=three
Now, you can always pass '' as the value of the parameter, which is
shorter than $null, if you wish to use the parameter just as a flag
(i.e. present or not on the request). The use case we're dealing with
is this:
$escapetool.url({'key': $value})
where $value is computed previously and it can sometimes be null
(either as a valid use case or because the evaluation failed).
We agree about skipping null keys. You prefer using empty string for
null values. I'm fine with this.
Thanks,
Marius
> --
> Sergiu Dumitriu
> http://purl.org/net/sergiu
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