Query parmeter: fields not working with field "Created By"

[Marcnuth]

I created a collection named "pages", and the collection only have 4 field:

• ID: the default field
• content: a text field with field type = string
• created_by: a User field with field type = User Created
• created_on: a DataTime field with field type = DateTime Created

When I try to use the API:

GET /items/pages?fields=*.*

The response is like:

{
data: [
  {id:1, content: 'blabla', created_on: 'a time string', created_by: 1},
  {id:2, content: 'bla222', created_on: 'time string', created_by: 1 }
]
}

In the response, the created_by only returns the ID of the user instead of the details of the user.
However, according to the docs, when I specify fields=*.*, the created_by field should be filled with details.

Note: My API version is the latest releases 2.0.4.
Please check this.

Thanks in advance.

[Marcnuth]

I did some debugging, and found the reason is:

No record is created in directus_relations table, so the API cannot find the detail of user.

However, why no record is created in directus_relations table?
Please fix this.

[rijkvanzanten]

@wellingguzman user_created / user_updated should automatically relate to directus_users right? Just like the file type relates to directus_files?

[benhaynes]

When we say "automatically" do we mean that it will automatically create the relationship (in directus_relations) when the field is created, or that the API will automatically return the relational data without the relationship defined in the database?

[wellingguzman]

The API should automatically set this relationship in "runtime" (not creating the relationship in the directus_relations table).

[KPChakravarthy]

Here's my collection -

ID: the default field
title: a text field with field type = string
story: a WYSIWYG editor
banner_image: a featured image
categories: a list of categories to select from
created_by: a User field with field type = User Created
created_on: a DataTime field with field type = DateTime Created

API call =
GET /items/stories?fields=*.*

Response =

    "data": [
        {
            "id": 8,
            "title": "Test",
            "banner_image": {
                "id": 1,
                "storage": "local",
                "filename": "love.jpg",
                "title": "Love",
                "type": "image/jpeg",
                "uploaded_by": 1,
                "uploaded_on": "2018-10-30T19:21:38+00:00",
                "charset": "binary",
                "filesize": 52498,
                "width": 800,
                "height": 450,
                "duration": null,
                "embed": null,
                "folder": null,
                "description": "",
                "location": "",
                "tags": [],
                "metadata": null,
                "data": {
                    "full_url": "http://thewriteaddict.com/directus/public/uploads/_/originals/love.jpg",
                    "url": "/uploads/_/originals/love.jpg",
                    "thumbnails": [
                        {
                            "url": "http://thewriteaddict.com/directus/public/thumbnail/_/200/200/crop/good/love.jpg",
                            "relative_url": "/thumbnail/_/200/200/crop/good/love.jpg",
                            "dimension": "200x200",
                            "width": 200,
                            "height": 200
                        }
                    ],
                    "embed": null
                }
            },
            "story": "<p>Test story</p>",
            "created_on": null,
            "author": {
                "id": 1
            },
            "categories": [
                {
                    "id": 14,
                    "story_id": "8",
                    "category_id": "1"
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "public": true
}```

As you can see, the `created_on` returns `null` and `author` returns only `id`

[wellingguzman]

I pushed this patch cf67174, to automatically set the default relationship for users type.

@Marcnuth + @KPChakravarthy this patch will fix this problem.

[Marcnuth]

@wellingguzman @benhaynes

The patch does fix the problem.
However, if I delete a relation field in a collection, the record in directus_relation won't be deleted.
Please fix this at the same time.

[benhaynes]

Hey @Marcnuth – this is a known issue being tracked in a different ticket:

https://github.com/directus/app/issues/1045

I'll leave this one closed and you can follow the progress in the other one.