Unable to handle nested JSON objects

[swinton]

👋 I'm using xcall with Bear's x-callback-url scheme, documented here.

Mostly this is working great, but with one exception: Where Bear's x-success contains nested JSON objects, for example the todo action (which returns an array of objects), xcall fails to properly JSON encode this data.

Example

# search for a todo containing 'hereismytodo'
xcall -url "bear://x-callback-url/todo?token=$BEAR_TOKEN&search=hereismytodo"

Returns the following (note how the notes property is a JSON escaped string):

{
  "notes" : "[{\"creationDate\":\"2022-01-18T21:43:37Z\",\"tags\":\"[]\",\"title\":\"- [ ] hereismytodo\",\"modificationDate\":\"2022-01-18T21:43:44Z\",\"identifier\":\"143D2519-2F4A-49C3-AA20-8A796673D036-70083-0003798CC0EB8A8E\",\"pin\":\"no\"}]",
  "" : null
}

Instead, the following should be returned:

{
  "notes": [
    {
      "creationDate": "2022-01-18T21:43:37Z",
      "tags": "[]",
      "title": "- [ ] hereismytodo",
      "modificationDate": "2022-01-18T21:43:44Z",
      "identifier": "143D2519-2F4A-49C3-AA20-8A796673D036-70083-0003798CC0EB8A8E",
      "pin": "no"
    }
  ]
}

It looks like the source of the issue is in jsonStringFromQueryItems, where it appears to assume the object is a simple set of key/value pairs:

xcall/xcall/AppDelegate.m

Lines 111 to 122 in 0d61fea

	+ (NSString *)jsonStringFromQueryItems:(NSArray<NSURLQueryItem *> *)queryItems
	{
	NSMutableDictionary *items = [NSMutableDictionary new];
	// Convert each query item to a key/value pair
	for (NSURLQueryItem *queryItem in queryItems)
	items[queryItem.name] = queryItem.value ?: NSNull.null;
	// Convert to JSON string
	NSData *data = [NSJSONSerialization dataWithJSONObject:items options:NSJSONWritingPrettyPrinted error:NULL];
	return [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
	}

I would love to PR this, but I'm not familiar with Objective-C 🤔

/cc @pr1mal -- wondering if you've seen this / can provide guidance given your work in #6 🙇

[swinton]

It looks like the source of the issue is in jsonStringFromQueryItems, where it appears to assume the object is a simple set of key/value pairs:

Looking at this a bit more closely, I believe the source of this issue is here:

xcall/xcall/AppDelegate.m

Lines 115 to 117 in 0d61fea

	// Convert each query item to a key/value pair
	for (NSURLQueryItem *queryItem in queryItems)
	items[queryItem.name] = queryItem.value ?: NSNull.null;

queryItem.value may contain a JSON-encoded value (as is the case with Bear's /todo x-success callback value) which should first be parsed before being added to items[queryItem.name]. If this fails, then as a fallback, just the pure queryItem.value should be added.

[swinton]

Potential fix for this up in #9.