Merge pull request #832 from marshmallow-code/delimited-empty

Add `empty` as a parameter to DelimitedFieldMixin

CHANGELOG.rst

@@ -1,9 +1,34 @@
 Changelog
 ---------
 
-8.3.1 (Unreleased)
+8.4.0 (Unreleased)
 ******************
 
+Features:
+
+* Add a new class attribute, ``empty_value`` to ``DelimitedList`` and
+  ``DelimitedTuple``, with a default of ``""``.
+  This controls the value deserialized when an empty string is seen.
+
+``empty_value`` can be used to handle types other than strings more gracefully, e.g.
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from webargs import fields
+
+
+    class IntList(fields.DelimitedList):
+        empty_value = 0
+
+
+    myfield = IntList(fields.Int())
+
+.. note::
+
+    ``empty_value`` will be changing in webargs v9.0 to be ``missing`` by
+    default. This will allow use of fields with ``load_default`` to specify
+    handling of the empty value.
+
 Changes:
 
 * Type annotations for ``FlaskParser`` have been improved

src/webargs/fields.py

@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@
 """
 from __future__ import annotations
 
+import typing
+
 import marshmallow as ma
 
 # Expose all fields from marshmallow.fields.
@@ -64,6 +66,8 @@ class DelimitedFieldMixin:
     delimiter: str = ","
     # delimited fields set is_multiple=False for webargs.core.is_multiple
     is_multiple: bool = False
+    # NOTE: in 8.x this defaults to "" but in 9.x it will be 'missing'
+    empty_value: typing.Any = ""
 
     def _serialize(self, value, attr, obj, **kwargs):
         # serializing will start with parent-class serialization, so that we correctly
@@ -77,6 +81,8 @@ def _deserialize(self, value, attr, data, **kwargs):
         if not isinstance(value, (str, bytes)):
             raise self.make_error("invalid")
         values = value.split(self.delimiter) if value else []
+        # convert empty strings to the empty value; typically "" and therefore a no-op
+        values = [v or self.empty_value for v in values]
         return super()._deserialize(values, attr, data, **kwargs)
 
 
@@ -117,6 +123,12 @@ class DelimitedTuple(DelimitedFieldMixin, ma.fields.Tuple):
 
     default_error_messages = {"invalid": "Not a valid delimited tuple."}
 
-    def __init__(self, tuple_fields, *, delimiter: str | None = None, **kwargs):
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        tuple_fields,
+        *,
+        delimiter: str | None = None,
+        **kwargs,
+    ):
         self.delimiter = delimiter or self.delimiter
         super().__init__(tuple_fields, **kwargs)

tests/test_core.py

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
     INCLUDE,
     RAISE,
     Schema,
+    missing,
     post_load,
     pre_load,
     validates_schema,
@@ -1106,6 +1107,47 @@ def test_delimited_tuple_passed_invalid_type(web_request, parser):
     assert excinfo.value.messages == {"json": {"ids": ["Not a valid delimited tuple."]}}
 
 
+def test_delimited_list_custom_empty_value(web_request, parser):
+    class ZeroList(fields.DelimitedList):
+        empty_value = 0
+
+    web_request.json = {"ids": "1,,3"}
+    schema_cls = Schema.from_dict({"ids": ZeroList(fields.Int())})
+    schema = schema_cls()
+
+    parsed = parser.parse(schema, web_request)
+    assert parsed["ids"] == [1, 0, 3]
+
+
+def test_delimited_tuple_custom_empty_value(web_request, parser):
+    class ZeroTuple(fields.DelimitedTuple):
+        empty_value = 0
+
+    web_request.json = {"ids": "1,,3"}
+    schema_cls = Schema.from_dict(
+        {"ids": ZeroTuple((fields.Int, fields.Int, fields.Int))}
+    )
+    schema = schema_cls()
+
+    parsed = parser.parse(schema, web_request)
+    assert parsed["ids"] == (1, 0, 3)
+
+
+def test_delimited_list_using_missing_for_empty(web_request, parser):
+    # this is "future" because we plan to make this the default for webargs v9.0
+    class FutureList(fields.DelimitedList):
+        empty_value = missing
+
+    web_request.json = {"ids": "foo,,bar"}
+    schema_cls = Schema.from_dict(
+        {"ids": FutureList(fields.String(load_default="nil"))}
+    )
+    schema = schema_cls()
+
+    parsed = parser.parse(schema, web_request)
+    assert parsed["ids"] == ["foo", "nil", "bar"]
+
+
 def test_missing_list_argument_not_in_parsed_result(web_request, parser):
     # arg missing in request
     web_request.json = {}