PATCH incorrectly normalizes default values in sub-documents

[zhangtemplar]

Consider the following schema:

'entity': {
  'name': {
    'type': 'string',
    'required': True },
  'contact': {
    'type': 'dict',
    'required': True,
    'schema': {
      'phone': {
        'type': 'string',
        'required': False,
        'default': '1234567890' },
      'email': {
        'type': 'string',
        'required': False,
        'default': 'abc@efg.com' },
    }
  }
}

Assume I have data like:

{
  "name": "test",
  "contact: {
    "phone": "0987654321",
    "email": "uvw@xyz.com"
  }
}

When I do a patch with data {"contact.phone": "1111111111"} to update the phone only:

Expected behavior

The data will be changed to

{
  "name": "test",
  "contact: {
    "phone": "1111111111",
    "email": "uvw@xyz.com"
  }
}

Actual Behavior

But the data I get is:

{
  "name": "test",
  "contact: {
    "phone": "1111111111",
    "email": "abc@efg.com"
  }
}

Yes, the email is also changed: since email is not provided in PATCH body, its default value is used. Is it the intended behavior for eve?

Environment

• Python version: 3.5.2
• Eve version: 0.8.1

[zhangtemplar]

To resolve this problem, I think the solution would be changing the eve/validation.py's validate_update method and set normalize to be True.

    def validate_update(self, document, document_id, persisted_document=None):
        """ Validate method to be invoked when performing an update, not an
        insert.

        :param document: the document to be validated.
        :param document_id: the unique id of the document.
        :param persisted_document: the persisted document to be updated.
        """
        self.document_id = document_id
        self.persisted_document = persisted_document
        return super(Validator, self).validate(document, update=True, normalize=False)

[zhangtemplar]

@nicolaiarocci D1235 is ready.

[nicolaiarocci]

@zhangtemplar see my comment in the PR

[nicolaiarocci]

I reverted 9b2ba0f while we wait for a non-failing patch.