Array of references

[Dragomir-Ivanov]

Hi @smyrman ,
I saw about #100, however the API has changed since then, how this is supposed to be configured:

			"applianceIds": {
				Validator: &schema.Array{
					Values: schema.Field{Validator: &schema.Reference{Path: "appliances"}},
				},
			},

Thanks.

[smyrman]

I believe that will just work for the validation part, but hooks won't get passed the right context as described in #192, and field embedding probably won't work; that wasn't solved by #100. Field embedding still rely on a hardcoded type check somewhere.

[Dragomir-Ivanov]

Thanks Sindre. However I need field embedding part. It seems that this case is the only one missing from rest-layer. I am willing to work on this.
Do you have anything in mind? Maybe I can try hard-code schema.Reference in schema.Array in evalProjection function?

[smyrman]

What we have done for similar cases when embedding is needed, is too implement it as a field handler parameter, e.g. expand=1 (one level), expand=2 (two levels).

For fixing it properly, some sort of interface is needed that the code doing the embedding can use.

[Dragomir-Ivanov]

It would be good if mainline rest-layer supports such expand query parameter. However often times not full expansion is needed, but only handful of fields.
Once I implement ( which may not be that soon ) the * field, then we can have rather flexible query language with optional expansion. Say

?fields=*,posts{*,user{*}}

Where posts and user are references.

[Dragomir-Ivanov]

In the mean time, I will try to add another parameter to schema.Reference, Array: true as a POC, and see where it goes.
BTW, Happy New Year @smyrman ! Wish you much success in the 2019 year.

[Dragomir-Ivanov]

I think I nailed #222 and #223, but it conflicts with yet not merged #215.
No additional parameter for schema.Reference need. It is auto detected from the payload.