Repeatedly in the past we ran into the following problem with using Thrift
from Java:
Consider the following simple model:
enum Colour {
red,
blue
}
struct Product {
string sku;
map<Colour, i32> inventory;
}
In our scenario Service A uses this version of the model. Service B uses a
newer version in which a new enum value "green" has been introduced.
Under the following circumstances:
1) B serializes a product in which an inventory entry is contained for
green.
2) A deserializes this product. As it does not know of green yet, the
problematic map key is deserialized as null.
3) A serializes the product again and runs into a NullPointerException.
My questions are:
1) Could this be a bug or should we somehow implement counter measures
against such cases? I think it feels a little weird to run
into this issue when using Thrift as there are several other similar
scenarious in which such a version mismatch is handled more gracefully.
2) Are there any best practices to deal with this case?
Thank you for your opinion!
Kind regards
Bjoern Hachmann
