On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 4:23 PM Michael Jumper <mjum...@apache.org> wrote: > > On 6/22/23 09:26, Nick Couchman wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 12:08 PM Najib . <aounina...@outlook.com> wrote: > >> > >> Its really awesome that Guacamole can be called using REST API, this makes > >> it incredibly powerful and flexible. However there some pain points and > >> improvements possible > >> > >> The connection and connection group response bodies are a rather big > >> JSON. They don’t use the array type and the keys contain the actual values > >> of the connection identifier. Any JSON parser will panic trying to > >> decipher them. Is there a reason why such JSON file is created for these > >> two types whereas others respect proper JSON formatting? See below for > >> what a better reponse body would look like. > > > > Working backward: > > * "Any JSON parser will panic trying to decipher them" - I don't think > > so - in fact, these very REST API responses are used by the browser > > itself to drive the web application. So there's at least one parser > > that _does not_ currently choke on them :-). Also, there's nothing > > wrong or non-standard about the JSON - it's perfectly valid, perfectly > > legitimate JSON. If a JSON parser is choking on the response, then it > > seems that it is unable to parse valid JSON, or simply does not have > > the resources to handle it. Using the identifier simply makes it an > > object, not an array - but it's still "good" JSON. > > * "They don’t use the array type and the keys contain the actual > > values of the connection identifier." - Yes, in fact, that's exactly > > the reason it is implemented this way. That way, if you want to get a > > specific connection or connection group, all you have to do is go get > > the specific object and you don't have to loop through the entire > > array looking for the correct identifier. > > Najib, can you clarify further why object vs. array would be a > substantial cause of difficulty for applications consuming the REST API? > > As Nick notes above, there is a technical reason we prefer to return > objects instead of arrays for responses that contain collections of > uniquely-identified objects. Barring a solid technical reason to migrate > to arrays, I would definitely be against changing the REST API in this way. > > The only technical reasons that occur to me for an array being more > ideal than an object in a REST API response would be: > > * Cases where order is significant.
And, even in this case, I would think the objects could be sorted, either by the back-end before returning them to the API, or by the consumer, no? Obviously that requires additional processing, particularly if done on the client-side after getting all of the results, my point is just that it's technically do-able. I suppose if you were trying to do something like loop through all connections for the purpose of listing them or performing an operation on all connections the array would be marginally easier to deal with, but looping through objects should be doable, particularly in common REST API client languages (JavaScript and Python come to mind). -Nick --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscr...@guacamole.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: user-h...@guacamole.apache.org
