When converting the JS objects to JSON get associative arrays for ObjectIds

[jhreis]

Since mobile clients don't natively support JS I am converting the JS objects returned, to JSON (via JSON.stringify()), and then converting them to native objects. But the object IDs get encoded as associative arrays like:

"objectId":{"0":158,"1":193,"2":153,"3":122,"4":79,"5":13,"6":42,"7":227,"8":172,"9":46,"10":104,"11":111,"12":120,"13":165,"14":32,"15":191}

This leads to some odd behavior, as native conversion does not guarantee retained order. Also, makes passing objectIds into the library more difficult.

[bridiver]

what js data type are they?

[jhreis]

Sync docs say Array of Objects (Array.<Object>), but it is actually an arguments object. I am planning on dealing with it natively, just kind of an odd result, so created ticket.

[diracdeltas]

object IDs in brave/sync are Uint8Arrays. to avoid the weird conversion and preserve order, you can serialize them with JSON.stringify(Array.from(objectID)), and then convert array back to Uint8Array when deserializing.

we have the same issue in browser-laptop, so i think it is a general issue with JSON.stringify.

[jhreis]

Yeah, the main issue is that the ids are just child properties in the data structure, and it is by far better to just JSON.stringify(<any result from sync>), rather than trying to parse through the data structure in JS, get a handle on the objectID itself, and then call JSON.stringify on it. Especially, when I need additional data besides just the objectIDs

Also, it is JS's stringify that is leading to the dictionary JSON, so this isn't an iOS thing, this is all native javascript. I use JS to first convert the returned result to JSON (which is where this is happening), and then later convert it to the native language.

The current solution is workable, just a bit hacky as I need to stitch the ID together from the JSON associative array.

I am not expecting or recommending any changes at this point, but wanted to get a discussion / bring awareness to this.

[diracdeltas]

I use JS to first convert the returned result to JSON

I just remembered that JSON.stringify takes a replacer function as the second argument: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/JSON/stringify#Parameters. So you could use this to convert any Uint8Arrays to Arrays.

[jhreis]

Oh, beautiful. This could help bunches. Appreciate it!

This is what I quickly came up with. Any thoughts / recommendations are welcome 😄

function(k,v) {
    if (Object.prototype.toString.call(v) === '[object Uint8Array]') {
        return Array.prototype.slice.call(v)
    }
    return v
}

[diracdeltas]

i would probably do

if (v instanceof Uint8Array) {
  return Array.from(v)
}
return v

[jhreis]

Yeah, me too. Haha. Thanks, much nicer.