Problem/Motivation

When text fields are configured without default plain_text behavior and no option to select format, format is saved to the Drupal database as NULL. Drupal knows to interpret that as plain_text as a sensible default. However, when this is serialized, it outputs the NULL value for the format property. This requires external knowledge of how to interpret the NULL (as plain_text).

It can also is a mismatch for the Typed Data API's declaration that this value is filter_format if typed data is interpreted as translating to a single specific type, such as a string. This is especially a problem for Contributed modules such as Schemata that seek to derive correct schema definitions of any serialized content based on Typed Data.

Proposed resolution

Not sure what the best approach is right now.

Option A: Store the format as plain_text when one is not otherwise available.
Option B: Serialize formats to plain_text when a NULL is found. Least impact on the rest of Drupal, but sets the precedent that NULLs will be special cased in serialization.

Remaining tasks

Decide on direction...

User interface changes

None.

API changes

Option A: Switch return of NULL values from some format retrieval methods to plain_text
Option B: Normalizer addition.

Data model changes

Option A: Storing plain_text in lieu of NULL
Option B: None

Comments

Grayside created an issue. See original summary.

Grayside’s picture

Grayside CreditAttribution: Grayside at Phase2 for Norwegian Cruise Line commented
Issue summary: View changes

Version: 8.3.x-dev » 8.4.x-dev

Drupal 8.3.0-alpha1 will be released the week of January 30, 2017, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.4.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Wim Leers’s picture

Wim Leers
Location Ghent 🇧🇪🇪🇺
CreditAttribution: Wim Leers at Acquia commented

Is this a generic problem? Or does it apply only to text fields?

Grayside’s picture

Grayside CreditAttribution: Grayside at Phase2 for Norwegian Cruise Line commented

This particular issue is initially scoped to text fields. However, the general problem was briefly touched on in #2751325: All serialized values are strings, should be integers/booleans when appropriate with the thought of

// @todo Support nullable types on the lowest levels.

Which I interpret to mean "our data types should be able to define what NULL means to them" such that when we load an entity it automatically understands how to handle it's NULL values, changing them to not-null in some cases. However, approaching that so generally seems like a much broader lift and aside from string = '' and format = 'plain_text' I don't have any practical examples.

Wim Leers’s picture

Wim Leers
Location Ghent 🇧🇪🇪🇺
CreditAttribution: Wim Leers at Acquia commented
Title: Format can be NULL but string expected from Typed Data » \Drupal\text\Plugin\Field\FieldType\TextItemBase normalization: 'format' property can be NULL but string expected from Typed Data
Component: serialization.module » filter.module
Issue tags: +API-First Initiative

Version: 8.4.x-dev » 8.5.x-dev

Drupal 8.4.0-alpha1 will be released the week of July 31, 2017, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.5.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.5.x-dev » 8.6.x-dev

Drupal 8.5.0-alpha1 will be released the week of January 17, 2018, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.6.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.6.x-dev » 8.7.x-dev

Drupal 8.6.0-alpha1 will be released the week of July 16, 2018, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.7.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.7.x-dev » 8.8.x-dev

Drupal 8.7.0-alpha1 will be released the week of March 11, 2019, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.8.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.8.x-dev » 8.9.x-dev

Drupal 8.8.0-alpha1 will be released the week of October 14th, 2019, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.9.x-dev branch. (Any changes to 8.9.x will also be committed to 9.0.x in preparation for Drupal 9’s release, but some changes like significant feature additions will be deferred to 9.1.x.). For more information see the Drupal 8 and 9 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 and 9 release cycles.

Version: 8.9.x-dev » 9.1.x-dev

Drupal 8.9.0-beta1 was released on March 20, 2020. 8.9.x is the final, long-term support (LTS) minor release of Drupal 8, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 9.1.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 and 9 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 and 9 release cycles.

Version: 9.1.x-dev » 9.2.x-dev

Drupal 9.1.0-alpha1 will be released the week of October 19, 2020, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.2.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 9 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 9 release cycle.

Version: 9.2.x-dev » 9.3.x-dev

Drupal 9.2.0-alpha1 will be released the week of May 3, 2021, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.3.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

Version: 9.3.x-dev » 9.4.x-dev

Drupal 9.3.0-rc1 was released on November 26, 2021, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.4.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

larowlan’s picture

larowlan
Location 🇦🇺🏝.au GMT+10
CreditAttribution: larowlan at PreviousNext commented
Category: Bug report » Task
Issue tags: +Bug Smash Initiative

This feels like a task to me

larowlan’s picture

larowlan
Location 🇦🇺🏝.au GMT+10
CreditAttribution: larowlan at PreviousNext commented
Priority: Normal » Minor

Version: 9.4.x-dev » 9.5.x-dev

Drupal 9.4.0-alpha1 was released on May 6, 2022, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.5.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

Version: 9.5.x-dev » 10.1.x-dev

Drupal 9.5.0-beta2 and Drupal 10.0.0-beta2 were released on September 29, 2022, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 10.1.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

Version: 10.1.x-dev » 11.x-dev

Drupal core is moving towards using a “main” branch. As an interim step, a new 11.x branch has been opened, as Drupal.org infrastructure cannot currently fully support a branch named main. New developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 11.x branch, which currently accepts only minor-version allowed changes. For more information, see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.