Support for Placeholder Fields property to be an Array

[robearlam]

What happened?

The OOTB Navigation component in XM-Cloud uses a custom Content Resolver to adjust the returned JSON and make the route.placeholders.placeholder[0].fields property into an Array. This SDK is configured to only handle the field property as an Object.

Navigation Item RCR Field contents:

Target RCR type:

This causes the Sitecore.AspNetCore.SDK.LayoutService.Client.Serialization.Converter.FieldParser to throw a JsonException as its expecting and object and not an array:

Reproduction Steps

1. Create a site in XM Cloud
2. Point your ASP.NET Core Head application to the site
3. Drag the Navigation component to the page

Actual Behavior

• Fatal exception, the page can no longer be rendered so its not even possible to remove the component via Pages. You need to remove is by editing the Layout Data via the Content Editor.

Expected Behavior

• Arrays of placeholder Fields should be supported.

Relevant log output

{
  "sitecore": {
    "context": {
      "pageEditing": false,
      "site": {
        "name": "aspnet-core-starter"
      },
      "pageState": "normal",
      "editMode": "chromes",
      "language": "en",
      "itemPath": "/"
    },
    "route": {
      "name": "Home",
      "displayName": "Home",
      "fields": {
        "Title": {
          "value": "aspnet-core-starter-123"
        },
        "Content": {
          "value": "<p>Page COntent COntent!</p>"
        },
        "NavigationClass": null,
        "NavigationFilter": [
          
        ],
        "NavigationTitle": {
          "value": "aspnet-core-starter"
        },
        "Page Design": null,
        "SxaTags": [
          
        ]
      },
      "databaseName": "master",
      "deviceId": "fe5d7fdf-89c0-4d99-9aa3-b5fbd009c9f3",
      "itemId": "27fa2701-5a1a-43b8-bb6b-c86baae7961d",
      "itemLanguage": "en",
      "itemVersion": 1,
      "layoutId": "96e5f4ba-a2cf-4a4c-a4e7-64da88226362",
      "templateId": "195a62a9-2c45-4f38-b9f7-6aff652bdadf",
      "templateName": "Page",
      "placeholders": {
        "headless-header": [
          {
            "uid": "e92cda14-efca-4abd-8e0f-cff8dfd74066",
            "componentName": "Navigation",
            "dataSource": "",
            "params": {
              "GridParameters": "col-12",
              "FieldNames": "Default",
              "LevelFrom": "{1BB88840-5FB3-4353-AD8D-81136F6FF75A}",
              "LevelTo": "{A59325BB-5A27-46F9-8110-9D499715F3BE}"
            },
            "fields": [
              {
                "Id": "b0dade99-22d2-4853-aa53-b4e1b2bdd680",
                "Styles": [
                  "level1",
                  "item0",
                  "odd",
                  "first"
                ],
                "Href": "/Page2",
                "Querystring": "",
                "NavigationTitle": {
                  "value": "Page2",
                  "editable": "Page2"
                }
              },
              {
                "Id": "cead36eb-cc39-401a-8ea7-37252d1a34f6",
                "Styles": [
                  "level1",
                  "item1",
                  "even",
                  "last"
                ],
                "Href": "/Page3",
                "Querystring": "",
                "NavigationTitle": {
                  "value": "Page3",
                  "editable": "Page3"
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        ],
        "headless-main": [

        ],
        "headless-footer": [
          
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[jbreuer]

I encountered a similar issue with handling empty strings and have submitted a pull request to address it. You can review the changes here: #12

[sc-ivanlieckens]

I have commented on #12 and I believe these 2 issues are indeed very similar and require a strategic architectural decision on the support of Custom Content Resolvers.