client.JSONPrinter{} should not sort the JSON items

[VojtechVitek]

client.JSONPrinter{}, as used in openshift kube process -c template.json command, should preserve order of the template's JSON items for better readability.

Seems like the used json.MarshalIndent() method https://github.com/openshift/origin/blob/master/pkg/cmd/client/json_printer.go#L20 sorts the items automatically. We need to either reimplement this method or figure out how to turn off the sorting.

Also, I'd expect the '\n' character at the end of the result JSON output.

/cc @mfojtik @bparees

[mfojtik]

@VojtechVitek I would argue against the trailing newline.

Also are you 100% positive that the MarshalIndent (or the json.Indent()) are screwing the order?

[VojtechVitek]

I wouldn't say 100%, but what else would cause it?

[smarterclayton]

Is the order really that bad?

[bparees]

it makes the files pretty hard to read as a user, yeah.

[smarterclayton]

You mean if i'm looking for a field I can actually find it? That sucks...

[bparees]

it's unreadable because it becomes hard to match up fields with the containing object when you've got fields at the bottom of a 30 line nested structure.

it's much better if the simple fields are at the top, before the nested crap, rather than trying to figure out which level of nesting a simple field at the bottom is associated to.

See example here:
https://gist.github.com/bparees/e68c4f2fafeab9be1194

Tell me which object this label applies to:
https://gist.github.com/bparees/e68c4f2fafeab9be1194#file-gistfile1-txt-L79

Or tell me what kind of object this is:
https://gist.github.com/bparees/e68c4f2fafeab9be1194#file-gistfile1-txt-L22

[smarterclayton]

The argument that would convince me would be "we should be returning it in the indented order of the underlying resource object", otherwise, we should return in sorted order for things we have no idea what they are.

[soltysh]

Generally speaking JSON fields are out of nature unordered. So preserving some order in most cases will be just unnecessary requirement. The only acceptable solution I see here, is sorting in natural order, this way it's easy to find the fields you're looking for. Besides grep does the trick, my 2 cents ;)

[VojtechVitek]

"we should be returning it in the indented order of the underlying resource object"

Yes, that's exactly what I had in my mind. And both k8s and origin already formats the JSON fields order based on the underlying objects. The only exception, for now, is the kube process command.

I think, for readability, it's much better to have "kind" and "id" on the top.

[smarterclayton]

Closing without prejudice - reopen upstream or suggest a fix.