Kiota Ignores Repeated Serialization

[buchananwill]

I am integrating Kiota/Graph with my existing application API, and while running various test cases to understand the Kiota serializer, I discovered that some of the nested properties weren't serializing. I stripped the test case back to this minimum, and having looked at other open issues (in particular #1131 ), I understand that this behaviour is intentional?

However, it is was extremely unexpected. I would expect serialization to be a side-effect free operation, especially if carried out via a static helper method. Are there optimization reasons that make this non-repeatability necessary? Or could the design be changed to always serialize a full object? Alternatively, could a second method be provided (and more explanation in the documentation) that gives the choice of changed/all properties? My default expectation would be the full object, with changed-only as a option.

package com.futuredyme.ServiceLayers.Utils.MicrosoftGraph;

import com.microsoft.graph.core.requests.BaseGraphRequestAdapter;
import com.microsoft.graph.models.*;
import com.microsoft.graph.serviceclient.GraphServiceClient;
import com.microsoft.kiota.authentication.AnonymousAuthenticationProvider;
import com.microsoft.kiota.serialization.KiotaJsonSerialization;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.Optional;

public class KiotaSideEffectTest {

    public static final String END_TIME = "2017-04-15T14:00:00";
    public static final String START_TIME = "2017-04-15T12:00:00";
    private static final GraphServiceClient graphServiceClient = new GraphServiceClient(new BaseGraphRequestAdapter(new AnonymousAuthenticationProvider()));

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Event event = createEvent();
        try {
            String string = KiotaJsonSerialization.serializeAsString(event);
            System.out.println(string);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
        System.out.println(event);
        System.out.println(Optional.ofNullable(event.getAttendees()).map(list -> !list.isEmpty() ? list.get(0) : null).orElse(null));
        try {
            String string = KiotaJsonSerialization.serializeAsString(event);
            System.out.println(string);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }


    }

    private static Event createEvent() {
        Event event = new Event();
        event.setSubject("Let's go for lunch");

        ItemBody body = getItemBody();
        event.setBody(body);

        DateTimeTimeZone start = getDateTimeTimeZone(START_TIME);
        event.setStart(start);

        DateTimeTimeZone end = getDateTimeTimeZone(END_TIME);
        event.setEnd(end);

        Location location = getLocation();
        event.setLocation(location);

        LinkedList<Attendee> attendees = new LinkedList<>();
        Attendee attendee = getAttendee();
        attendees.add(attendee);
        event.setAttendees(attendees);

        event.setAllowNewTimeProposals(true);
        event.setTransactionId("7E163156-7762-4BEB-A1C6-729EA81755A7");
        return event;
    }

    private static @NotNull ItemBody getItemBody() {
        ItemBody body = new ItemBody();
        body.setContentType(BodyType.Html);
        body.setContent("Does noon work for you?");
        return body;
    }

    private static @NotNull DateTimeTimeZone getDateTimeTimeZone(String time) {
        DateTimeTimeZone end = new DateTimeTimeZone();
        end.setDateTime(time);
        end.setTimeZone("Pacific Standard Time");
        return end;
    }

    private static @NotNull Location getLocation() {
        Location location = new Location();
        location.setDisplayName("Harry's Bar");
        return location;
    }

    private static @NotNull Attendee getAttendee() {
        Attendee attendee = new Attendee();
        EmailAddress emailAddress = new EmailAddress();
        emailAddress.setAddress("[email protected]");
        emailAddress.setName("Samantha Booth");
        attendee.setEmailAddress(emailAddress);
        attendee.setType(AttendeeType.Required);
        return attendee;
    }

}

Output:

{"@odata.type":"#microsoft.graph.event","allowNewTimeProposals":true,"attendees":[{"emailAddress":{"address":"[email protected]","name":"Samantha Booth"},"@odata.type":"#microsoft.graph.attendee","type":"required"}],"body":{"content":"Does noon work for you?","contentType":"html"},"end":{"dateTime":"2017-04-15T14:00:00","timeZone":"Pacific Standard Time"},"location":{"displayName":"Harry's Bar"},"start":{"dateTime":"2017-04-15T12:00:00","timeZone":"Pacific Standard Time"},"subject":"Let's go for lunch","transactionId":"7E163156-7762-4BEB-A1C6-729EA81755A7"}
com.microsoft.graph.models.Event@13bc8645
com.microsoft.graph.models.Attendee@93081b6
{}

[baywet]

Hi @buchananwill ,
Thank you for using kiota and for reaching out.

While I appreciate the level of details that you provided, I'm not sure I understand why you created an additional issue here? Maybe I missed something but it seems to be the same request as the issue I originally had created?

[buchananwill]

Thanks for clarifying. I think you're indeed right - I am more-or-less duplicating your post. Before writing, I read around a few of the related issues and some of them were more specific about serialization of collections, or the serializeAsStream() method. Having re-read the comments on your post, #1131, you have indeed covered the points I've made here. I guess I conflated/confused the different threads and wasn't satisfied that the behaviour was concisely documented in the way I understood it.

My key takeaway: any repeated serialization results in empty lists, or entirely ignored properties.

[baywet]

Thanks for confirming, closing as duplicate, feel free to add additional context to the original issue.