[RFC] - Easier Angular HttpClient serialization

[ms1111]

Easier Angular HttpClient serialization

Expose toPojo() in Serializable or make toJson() return a JsonObject (related to #59).

Motivation

In Angular, if you do something like:

return this.httpClient.post(this.url, mySerializableObject.toJson());

... it tries to send the JSON string as Content-type: text/plain instead of application/json.

Design Detail

Add a method to the Serializable class expose the internal serialized representation (the POJO before JSON.stringify()). In Angular you could then do:

return this.httpClient.post(this.url, mySerializableObject.toPojo());

Drawbacks

• more noise/confusion in the API

Rationale and Alternatives

Alternatives:

1. Some kind of HttpClient intereptor to detect a Serializable object and set the character set appropriately. The caller would then do:

return this.httpClient.post(this.url, mySerializableObject); // some magic will call toJson() on the object

2. Or, callers could set HttpClient options to force the right content type on each post/put call.

const httpOptions = {
    headers: new HttpHeaders({
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    })
};
return this.httpClient.post(this.url, mySerializableObject.toJson(), httpOptions);

Prior Art

Unresolved questions

[hardy925]

Personally, I am leaning more on this being an angular issue. HttpClient tries to infer the content-type base on the type of. the second value. I like that there are options to solve this outside of the project but I a unsure of the best approach

[ms1111]

I think Scott had the idea of exposing a Serializable.tsSerialize() method that would return the object in JsonObject form that Angular or other frameworks could use.

(i.e. rename toPojo() to tsSerialize() and make it public)

[hardy925]

it was your idea!