HttpRequest's body only accepts Uint8Array in typescript.

[cielo]

Hi,

I am using v2 namespace, but this problem seems to exist in v2beta3 namespace as well. Also, this issue might be related to #331.

I cannot seem to use HttpRequest because its body property is expecting Uint8Array. The part of proto.d.ts file looks like below, and you can see that body is only expecting Uint8Array. Is this an expected behavior? Because of below type definition, my ts file is throwing the following error.
Type 'string' is not assignable to type 'Uint8Array | null | undefined'

I think it would be much better if it accepts some form of string or variations of string... not Uint8array.

            /** Properties of a HttpRequest. */
            interface IHttpRequest {

                /** HttpRequest url */
                url?: (string|null);

                /** HttpRequest httpMethod */
                httpMethod?: (google.cloud.tasks.v2.HttpMethod|null);

                /** HttpRequest headers */
                headers?: ({ [k: string]: string }|null);

                /** HttpRequest body */
                body?: (Uint8Array|null);

                /** HttpRequest oauthToken */
                oauthToken?: (google.cloud.tasks.v2.IOAuthToken|null);

                /** HttpRequest oidcToken */
                oidcToken?: (google.cloud.tasks.v2.IOidcToken|null);
            }

What workaround can I use in this case?

Environment details

• @google-cloud/tasks version: 1.7.1

[bcoe]

@alexander-fenster @xiaozhenliu-gg5 this seems a bit odd, should that be a Buffer, and/or stream?

[alexander-fenster]

Hi @cielo, thank you for this report. This is indeed similar to #331, and the main problem here is caused by the inconsistent types generated by pbts tool (they are stricter than the type protobuf.js fromObject actually accept). The right solution to this would involve patching pbts (which is one of the options on the table). We are actively searching for a good enough solution for that and I expect to have it sorted out soon. Until that time, please try using my fromObject suggestion from #331:

import * as protos from '@google-cloud/tasks/build/protos/protos';

const httpRequest = protos.google.cloud.tasks.v2.HttpRequest.fromObject({
  . . .
});

The fromObject accepts objects in a less strict manner so you should be able to pass a string there.

Obviously, it only affects TypeScript users :)

[cielo]

Thanks. I was able to use fromObject to bypass this issue per your suggestion.

However, because that helper method accepts any object and type checking is no longer done, I misplaced my 'scheduleTime' parameter in the wrong place... took a while (carefully reading my parameters as if I have traveled back to old JavaScript days) to figure out why Google Tasks isn't accepting my future schedule requests, and firing tasks as soon as possible.

Anyhow, everything is resolved now on my end. Google Tasks seems to be a powerful service, and I already fell in love with it. Keep up the good work!

[alexander-fenster]

This should be fixed in v1.7.3 (we updated the types to include string where UInt8Array was allowed).