Support Deep Aware for JSON Objects on Patch

[william-seaton]

Steps to reproduce

Build a feathers instance using Postgres with a JSONB Column. The resulting object lets say for the sake of example looks like this:

var user = {
    name: 'John Doe',
    ...details,  //More columns
   settings: { //This is a JSONB Column
        region: 'en-ca',
        colour: '#FFFFFFF',
        ...moreSettings
   }
}

Lets say I want to update only the user.settings.colour field and patch that into the database. If I set for instance user.settings.colour = '#BADEED' its going to act like an update not a patch and delete all other things. The object will look like this instead:

var user = {
    name: 'John Doe',
    ...details,  //More columns
   settings: { //This is a JSONB Column
        colour: '#FFFFFFF'
   }
}

Expected behavior

Only the settings.colour should be modified.

Actual behavior

settings only contains colour and deletes all other entries. I think sequelize is treating it like a string.

System configuration

Tell us about the applicable parts of your setup.

Module versions (especially the part that's not working):

{
    "@feathersjs/authentication": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/authentication-local": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/authentication-oauth": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/configuration": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/errors": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/express": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/feathers": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/socketio": "^4.5.11",
    "@feathersjs/transport-commons": "^4.5.11",
    "feathers-sequelize": "^6.2.0"
}

NodeJS version:
v16.3.0

Operating System:
macOS Big Sur 11.4 (20F71) & Docker node:alpine

I think it should be possible based on this: Sequelize 6 Supports Deep Aware for JSON

[DaddyWarbucks]

Sequelize does not support this as you have described.

From the link you posted

const instance = await MyModel.findOne();

instance.myJsonField.someProperty = 12345; // Changed from something else to 12345
console.log(instance.changed()); // false

await instance.save(); // this will not save anything

instance.changed("myJsonField", true);
console.log(instance.changed()); // ['myJsonField']

await instance.save(); // will save

Notice that this is working with Sequelize instances and that you have to manually mark a nested column as having changed. So this is actually saying that Sequelize doesn't really support what you have described and that you have to manually manage it.

I don't think feathers-sequelize should try to support this as it is not natively supported by Sequelize. But, you should be able to accomplish this in a hook quite easily. Something like this should get you goin.

async function deepPatch(context) {
  const stashed = await context.service.get(context.id);
  const merged = deepMerge(stashed, context.data);
  context.data = merged;
  return context;
}