Fl4m3Ph03n1x

Fl4m3Ph03n1x

How to have custom enconding for struct using Jason?

Background

I am trying to encode a structure into json format using the Jason library. However, this is not working as expected.

Code

Let’s assume I have this struct:

defmodule Test do
   defstruct [:foo, :bar, :baz]
end

And that when using Jason.enconde(%Test{foo: 1, bar: 2, baz:3 }) I want this json to be created:

%{"foo" => 1, "banana" => 5}

Error

It is my understanding that to achieve this I need to implement the Jason.Enconder protocol in my struct:
https://hexdocs.pm/jason/Jason.Encoder.html

defmodule Test do
   defstruct [:foo, :bar, :baz]
   
   defimpl Jason.Encoder do
      @impl Jason.Encoder 
      def encode(value, opts) do
         Jason.Encode.map(%{foo: Map.get(value, :foo), banana: Map.get(value, :bar, 0) + Map.get(value, :baz, 0)}, opts)
      end
   end
end

However, this will not work:

Jason.encode(%Test{foo: 1, bar: 2, baz: 3})
{:error,
 %Protocol.UndefinedError{
   description: "Jason.Encoder protocol must always be explicitly implemented.\n\nIf you own the struct, you can derive the implementation specifying which fields should be encoded to JSON:\n\n    @derive {Jason.Encoder, only: [....]}\n    defstruct ...\n\nIt is also possible to encode all fields, although this should be used carefully to avoid accidentally leaking private information when new fields are added:\n\n    @derive Jason.Encoder\n    defstruct ...\n\nFinally, if you don't own the struct you want to encode to JSON, you may use Protocol.derive/3 placed outside of any module:\n\n    Protocol.derive(Jason.Encoder, NameOfTheStruct, only: [...])\n    Protocol.derive(Jason.Encoder, NameOfTheStruct)\n",
   protocol: Jason.Encoder,
   value: %Test{bar: 2, baz: 3, foo: 1}
 }}

From what I understand, it looks like I can only select/exclude keys to serialize, I cannot transform/add new keys.
Since I own the structure in question, using Protocol.derive is not necessary.

However I fail to understand how I can leverage the Jason.Encoder protocol to achieve what I want.

Questions

  1. Is my objective possible using the Jason library, or is this a limitation?
  2. Am I miss understanding the documentation and doing something incorrect?

Marked As Solved

Fl4m3Ph03n1x

Fl4m3Ph03n1x

Answer

Turns out there is nothing wrong with the code itself.

The issue here is that I was trying these examples in the iex shell. Due to Protocol Consolidation this means that the protocol will be consolidated at compile time. Therefore, because when I launch iex there is nothing regarding the Jason.Encoder protocol compiled, I loose the chance to do it runtime (and iex is runtime).

This also affects tests in an interesting way, to fix them you can either disable Protocol Consolidation wen running under Mix.env() == :test (but it will absolutely hammer your test’s performance) or you can do it at compile time with some extra options.

A very good answer was also given by the community:

And I recommend you read the full thread if you want all the juicy details that I have quickly summarized here.

Where Next?

Popular Backend topics Top

dimitarvp
Hey everyone, I resumed work on my Elixir <=> SQLite library (which uses a Rust NIF underneath) and I am in a need of small and we...
New
New
Fl4m3Ph03n1x
Background I am trying to up my Functional Programming (FP) skills and one of the things that newcomers first learn in FP is the Option T...
New
Fl4m3Ph03n1x
Background I am trying out polymorphic typing with dialyzer. As an example I am using the famous Option type (aka, Maybe Monad) that is n...
New
JimmyCarterSon
Hello, I am. very new to Elixir lang I have only been doing it for about 2 weeks. I recently started following this tutorial todo list, ...
New
JimmyCarterSon
Hello, I am working on a new application with Elixir, Dish_out. I want to see Data I follow this tutorial with Elixir Casts. However, I ...
New
Fl4m3Ph03n1x
Background I have recently been delving into more functional code. My objective right now is to get something similar to the IO Monad (in...
New
AstonJ
If when trying to create (or recreate) your dev db with rails db:create you are getting: PG::ConnectionBad: connection to server on soc...
New
Fl4m3Ph03n1x
Background I have a personal project that is an elixir desktop application for PC Windows. It works pretty well, but now I want to give i...
New
New

Other popular topics Top

Devtalk
Hello Devtalk World! Please let us know a little about who you are and where you’re from :nerd_face:
New
AstonJ
A thread that every forum needs! Simply post a link to a track on YouTube (or SoundCloud or Vimeo amongst others!) on a separate line an...
New
AstonJ
What chair do you have while working… and why? Is there a ‘best’ type of chair or working position for developers?
New
DevotionGeo
I know that these benchmarks might not be the exact picture of real-world scenario, but still I expect a Rust web framework performing a ...
New
AstonJ
We have a thread about the keyboards we have, but what about nice keyboards we come across that we want? If you have seen any that look n...
New
AstonJ
I’ve been hearing quite a lot of comments relating to the sound of a keyboard, with one of the most desirable of these called ‘thock’, he...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Build highly interactive applications without ever leaving Elixir, the way the experts do. Let LiveView take care of performance, scalabi...
New
DevotionGeo
The V Programming Language Simple language for building maintainable programs V is already mentioned couple of times in the forum, but I...
New
rustkas
Intensively researching Erlang books and additional resources on it, I have found that the topic of using Regular Expressions is either c...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Develop, deploy, and debug BEAM applications using BEAMOps: a new paradigm that focuses on scalability, fault tolerance, and owning each ...
New