Fix: Create JSON output file only when there is content

[burnsra]

With the latest version of the Snyk CLI(v1.1276.0), when specifying json-output-file and no JSON was generated, an empty output file is created. Previous versions of the CLI did not generate an empty file. I have added a check for content before calling the function saveJsonToFileCreatingDirectoryIfRequired.

The risk for this change is LOW

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[thisislawatts]

Thanks for the report @burnsra and proposed fix. Clearly we are missing some tests here to validate that behaviour/contract. I will escalate to the team to address.

[thisislawatts]

Hey @burnsra would you be able to share a bit more information so we can recreate the situation where you are getting an empty json file?

[burnsra]

Hey @burnsra would you be able to share a bit more information so we can recreate the situation where you are getting an empty json file?

Of course @thisislawatts, and thanks in advance for your help with this issue!

Run snyk code test --json-file-output=code.json on a directory which contains valid code projects, but contains no issues.
No issues exist, but an empty code.json file is still created. With previous versions of CLI, the file was not created if it had no content.

Also, I added an additional commit with test cases and logic added to the function to determine if content is empty.

[PeterSchafer]

Hello @burnsra,

as @thisislawatts said, thank you for bringing this issue to our attention and proposing this fix. We looked into the root cause of the issue and think that a slightly different solution addresses the issue introduced better. Please take a look at our proposal in #5030 . There we added a closed box test to ensure that this behaviour is covered and a future regression would be detected. We will be going forward with #5030 in order to get a fix released as soon as possible.
We really appreciate that you took the time and provided the information to fix this issue!

Thank you for support and have a nice weekend!