Cannot read attributes of `null`

[seberik]

When I run deserialize on { data: null } i get the following error: cannot read attributes of null but it is an valid json-api response. Is this expected behavior?

[aalimovs]

I don't believe { data: null } is a valid response.

https://jsonapi.org/format/#document-top-level

`data`: the document’s “primary data”

Primary data MUST be either:

- a single resource object, a single resource identifier object, or null, for requests that target single resources
- an array of resource objects, an array of resource identifier objects, or an empty array ([]), for requests that target resource collections

So it should be either single resource

{
  "data": {
    "type": "articles",
    "id": "1",
    "attributes": {
      // ... this article's attributes
    }
  }

or array (empty or with resources)

{
  data: []
}

[davidgovea]

Having the same issue.

@aalimovs is it possible you missed the "or null"? Or are you interpreting it differently?

data MUST be either: a single resource object (1), a single resource identifier object (2), or null (3) for ... single resources

It feels like every time I read the spec I find another way I've misunderstood it 😛

[aalimovs]

@davidgovea good catch 😅 I missed that.

We do actually have data: null ourselves, but only in has-one/belongs-to relationships. We normally 404 if you request something like /articles/999 where it doesn't exist.

Can you share a code example when you get that error?

[davidgovea]

Here's an example: https://codesandbox.io/s/jsonapi-deserializer-error-oie91

It's not ideal, but sometimes we have a need for data-less 200 success responses (especially when wrapping older restish apis with JSON:API) So, what is the "minimum" non-error JSON-API document? { meta: { } }? Dummy "OK" data? We're, currently using data:null, and patching the deserializer behavior in a catch {}

[martinezguillaume]

Here is my jsonapi-serializer+3.6.9.patch to solve this

diff --git a/node_modules/jsonapi-serializer/lib/deserializer.js b/node_modules/jsonapi-serializer/lib/deserializer.js
index 1cb7c1a..d8fc6e4 100644
--- a/node_modules/jsonapi-serializer/lib/deserializer.js
+++ b/node_modules/jsonapi-serializer/lib/deserializer.js
@@ -31,8 +31,9 @@ module.exports = function (opts) {
           return result
         });
     }
-
-    if (Array.isArray(jsonapi.data)) {
+    if (!jsonapi.data) {
+      return jsonapi.data
+    } else if (Array.isArray(jsonapi.data)) {
       return collection();
     } else {
       return resource();