When link has no meta it should render link as shortened version ("rel": "href")

[marceloverdijk]

Currently links are rendered as:

{
  "links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "abc",
      "meta": {
        "foo": "bar"
      }
    }
  }
}

and without meta as:

{
  "links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "abc",
      "meta": null
    }
  }
}

or in case https://github.com/jasminb/jsonapi-converter/pull/181 is accepted as:

{
  "links": {
    "self": {
      "href": "abc"
    }
  }
}

Still not perfect. In case no meta is available I think rendering it to the below sample would be preferable:

{
  "links": {
    "self": "abc"
  }
}

This is also done like this in the jsonapi specs.

We could solve this by writing a custom JsonSerializer for the Link object.

Would you be interested in a PR for that?

[jasminb]

Quick thought, maybe this could be solved with meta-aware link getters in combination with disabling null value serialisation?

[marceloverdijk]

In general I do like null properties to be serialized, especially for the ”attributes” element of the resources.

But for the core jsonapi elements I don’t think it’s usefull, like the ”meta” element. And that’s also why I would prefer the shorthand version of the link if possible.

PS: I know I’m not consistent regarding serializing null values here 😇 (but at least it’s how I would prefer the output to look like)

[marceloverdijk]

I also don’t know how your quick thought would work because conditionally you wat the omit the href (shorthand variant) or not (in case meta is not null).

[marceloverdijk]

Closed as fixed by PR #188