PatchSorter incorrectly converts numeric path tokens to integers, causing key‑lookup failures

[xincunli-sonic]

Context

In generic_config_updater/patch_sorter.py, the _get_value() helper function automatically converts any numeric-looking token into an integer:

    @staticmethod
    def _get_value(config, tokens):
        for token in tokens:
            if isinstance(token, str) and token.isnumeric():
                token = int(token)
            config = config[token]

This causes incorrect behavior when the target config uses string keys that look like numbers.

Problem

When applying a patch such as:

[
  {
    "op": "replace",
    "path": "/TC_TO_QUEUE_MAP/AZURE/8",
    "value": "7"
  },
  {
    "op": "add",
    "path": "/TC_TO_QUEUE_MAP/AZURE/7",
    "value": "6"
  }
]

The last token ("7" or "8") is converted into int, but in the actual config the keys are strings, not integers:

Target config contains: "7"
Patch attempts to look up: 7

This results in a KeyError or incorrect patch ordering behavior because config[7] does not exist while config["7"] does.

Expected Behavior

PatchSorter should respect the actual JSON structure and not guess key types. If the config contains string keys, patch processing must preserve string semantics and avoid coercing tokens to integers.
Impact

Patches on configs with numeric string keys fail to apply.
Patch sorting based on _get_value() becomes unreliable due to mismatched key types.
Affects real-world configs such as TC_TO_QUEUE_MAP, where queue indices are strings.

Proposed Directions

Remove automatic int() coercion.
Or infer key types from the actual config dict.
Or attempt both str and int lookups in a safe order.

[developfast]

@bhouse-nexthop pls help take a look at this bug

[bhouse-nexthop]

I'll take a look, I've got a number of other GCU things to tackle I'll be starting on later this week so its good timing. I will say I do recall this and the reason for numeric conversion is for array indexes. This is pre-existing logic that I kept during the last re-work of the code when I was working on performance optimization.

The proper thing to do is lookup in the yang model itself for type conversion, but a test for both string and integer would work too.

[xincunli-sonic]

Here is the fix PR: #4237, please @bhouse-nexthop @developfast help review