Empty objects

[sm2017]

In this proto

message MyProto {
    User user = 1;
    float id = 2;
}

If I create new object of MyProto and set user and empty User object , when I printDebugString , Ican see empty object in user property
But if I serializeToString and parseFromString and then printDebugString , there is no empty object and user is null
Why? How can I pass empty object ?

[serggp]

Could you please clarify what do you mean when you say 'empty User object'?

[sm2017]

Assume we have this proto and compile it

message User{
      string name = 1;
      string family= 2;
}

the empty user object is

$user = new User;

not empty user object is

$user = new User;
$user->setName('Joe');

[sm2017]

Any idea?

[hjagodzinski]

During serialization empty objects are skipped. I agree with point that you have different object state after parsing which shouldn't be the case. I will fix it.

[serggp]

@hjagodzinski Skipping such objects during serialization is ok unless it's a required field. This object should be recreated based on default values during parseFromString().

[serggp]

So I checked C++ implementation and fixed serialization method using the same approach. See pull request #87