-F doesn't parse JSON object inside an array

@williammartin

Describe the bug

gh version 2.42.1 (2024-01-15)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v2.42.1

For this Custom Properties endpoint, we need to pass a JSON with an array of objects. But neither the -f or the -F options parse that subobject, and it's always sent as a string, which is rejected by the endpoint.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

gh api \
  --method PATCH \
  /repos/properties-game/chess/properties/values \
  -F 'properties[]'='{"property_name": "color", "value": "red"}'

Expected vs actual behavior

Debug:

pablo@MBP-de-Pablo ~ % GH_DEBUG=api gh api \
  -X PATCH \
  /repos/properties-game/chess/properties/values \
  -f 'properties[]'='{"property_name": "color", "value": "red"}'

* Request at 2024-01-25 11:32:44.403733 +0100 CET m=+0.085115404
* Request to https://api.github.com/repos/properties-game/chess/properties/values
> PATCH /repos/properties-game/chess/properties/values HTTP/1.1
> Host: api.github.com
> Accept: */*
> Authorization: token ████████████████████
> Content-Length: 69
> Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
> Time-Zone: Europe/Madrid
> User-Agent: GitHub CLI 2.42.1

{
  "properties": [
    "{\"property_name\": \"color\", \"value\": \"red\"}"
  ]
}

< HTTP/2.0 422 Unprocessable Entity
[Redacted]
* Request took 392.360715ms
{
  "message": "Invalid request.\n\nInvalid property /properties/0: `\"{\\\"property_name\\\": \\\"color\\\", \\\"value\\\": \\\"red\\\"}\"` is not of type `object`.",
  "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest/repos/custom-properties#create-or-update-custom-property-values-for-a-repository"
}
gh: Invalid request.

Invalid property /properties/0: `"{\"property_name\": \"color\", \"value\": \"red\"}"` is not of type `object`. (HTTP 422)

In the request body, we'd expect an array of objects:

{
  "properties": [
    { "property_name": "color", "value": "red" }
  ]
}

instead of an array of strings

{
  "properties": [
    "{\"property_name\": \"color\", \"value\": \"red\"}"
  ]
}

Workaround

@williammartin figured out a workaround with --input:

echo '{"properties": [{"property_name": "color", "value": "red"}] }' | GH_DEBUG=api gh api --method PATCH /repos/properties-game/chess/properties/values --input -

although it would still be desirable that -F understand json, as we have the alternative of -f if we want to pass the string unparsed. Today both behave the same for this input.

I've relabelled this as an enhancement because I don't believe it's documented anywhere that we would expect this to work. Here are the docs for -F and -f:

  -F, --field key=value       Add a typed parameter in key=value format
  -f, --raw-field key=value   Add a string parameter in key=value format

While we might hope that -F handles json, it doesn't, and that's what this enhancement request is really about.

I did a naive implementation for -F support in a3ade6b which attempts to unmarshal the field as JSON, but I'm not sure what the pitfalls of this approach are (for example, what is valid json?).

@williammartin

@williammartin These are all valid JSONs: 999, true, false, null, "foo". So, I don't think it's really safe.

Maybe moving the JSON unmarshal part to the end of the method could help (where the input is not of any other expected type)?

I know it's not that pretty, but can't we just add a new argument, like --json-field, for such cases? This doesn't break CLI compatibility and also provides the desired improvements.

I've relabelled this as an enhancement because I don't believe it's documented anywhere that we would expect this to work. Here are the docs for -F and -f:
  -F, --field key=value       Add a typed parameter in key=value format
  -f, --raw-field key=value   Add a string parameter in key=value format
While we might hope that -F handles json, it doesn't, and that's what this enhancement request is really about.

I did a naive implementation for -F support in a3ade6b which attempts to unmarshal the field as JSON, but I'm not sure what the pitfalls of this approach are (for example, what is valid json?).

This would be really useful to be documented on the api docs . If you use -F with a bool for the value it fails with the value must be a string or an array. Only after trying -f, found from this issue, did it work.

Maybe an extra set of properties to update in the example

-F "properties[][property_name]=is_for_abc" -f "properties[][value]=true"

Please open a Documentation Issue against the CLI example here Create or update custom property values for a repository. Knowing that -f/-F would not work would have saved me several hours of time.
Yes I'm a little stubborn, and could have switched to curl.. but I wanted to stick with a single method.

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`-F` doesn't parse JSON object inside an array #8621

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-F doesn't parse JSON object inside an array #8621

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williammartin commented on Feb 20, 2024

babakks commented on Mar 31, 2024

babakks commented on Mar 31, 2024

asos-matthewbarber commented on Apr 5, 2024

peter-mccann commented on Dec 10, 2024

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`-F` doesn't parse JSON object inside an array #8621