Handle case that an array is passed to convert_array

[ajolipa]

In this PR

Addresses performant-software/core-data-cloud#523 by checking whether the passed value is already of type Array before applying JSON.parse.

Notes and questions

For maximum flexibility and backwards compatibility I am not assuming here that the value in this case will always be an array; I'm not sure why or at what point something changed so that it's actually being parsed as an array automatically without needing to be parsed, but I figure it can't hurt to just support both cases?

[dleadbetter]

I'm not sure we want to support multiple ways to store the JSON data. Is it possible that Rails has always been converting the JSON for us and this never worked?

[ajolipa]

I'm not sure we want to support multiple ways to store the JSON data. Is it possible that Rails has always been converting the JSON for us and this never worked?

That is possible! With NBU there was a field ("status" on person records) that was successfully indexed the first few times we ran the Typesense scripts and then at some point the client noticed that newer data wasn't showing up; but in that case I believe the field was changed to multiple in the interim, which I assume is what caused it to stop working. So I don't think I have any evidence that it ever worked -- just without being sure I didn't want to mess things up for older projects! Open to suggestions for the best way to handle it obviously.

[dleadbetter]

Yeah, I think we should assume that the value argument passed to the convert_value method is whatever is pulled directly out of the user_defined JSON hash. I tested this on staging.coredata.cloud, and when we're using a field type of "Select" with "Allow Multiple", the value appears to be an array. If that's not the case for a project/record, I think we have a data typing problem happening somewhere else which we should address separately.

[ajolipa]

Updated to just remove the convert_array part of the logic, per discussion above suggesting we can go ahead and assume that we don't need a special conversion for the case of a select field with allowMultiple.

[dleadbetter]

Is there an issue we can connect this to?

[ajolipa]

Is there an issue we can connect this to?

I linked performant-software/core-data-cloud#523 in the description; should I also create an issue in this repo for it?

[dleadbetter]

I linked performant-software/core-data-cloud#523 in the description; should I also create an issue in this repo for it?

Ah, perfect. I missed that. 👍