fractal: Laravel - $this->null() returns an empty array instead of empty object

I dont know if solve your problem. But you can try

return $question->documentType
        ? $this->item($question->documentType, new DocumentTypeTransformer)
        : $this->primitive(null);

And return is

{
  "foo": null
}

this is dont {} but is better than []

I too am looking for an update on this. I’d personally like a null item resource to look like so:

{
  "key": {
    "data: null
  }
}

An empty array or object doesn’t make any sense for a non-existent object.

Hello @buglinjo , @BRafols I have a similar issue, but i want to return null when include is empty (because return empty array is too weird). So, i’ve just implemented my own serializer:

<?php

namespace App\Serializers;

use League\Fractal\Serializer\ArraySerializer as DefaultArraySerializer;

class ArraySerializer extends DefaultArraySerializer
{
    /**
     * Serialize null resource.
     *
     * @return null
     */
    public function null()
    {
        return null;
    }
}

And it works as expected for me. But if you try to change null to ‘{}’ or ‘new \stdClass()’ it will throw an error @KorvinSzanto , and it may cause an issue.

+"message": "array_merge(): Argument #1 is not an array"
  +"exception": "ErrorException"
  +"file": "/home/vagrant/vendor/league/fractal/src/Scope.php"
  +"line": 288

Also to return [] for empty collection you can just use anything like this

return $this->collection([], new AnyTransformer());

and it will return "include":{"data":[]} with ArraySerializer, don’t sure about others. But $this->nullCollection() will be much easier and usefull i think

I have an almost working POC. Im working with the other maintainers to figure out how to release it.

The plan is that the NullResource is going to be in line (as close as I can get it) to what is being discussed. However this would be a huge breaking change to anyone who currently relies on the null resource to be [], so I am adding a new EmptyResource which will be in line with what is the current behavior.

The issue though is that this is a breaking change, so I dont want to unilaterally release something like this.

Thanks for your patience!

I’m also using the default serializer.

The most optinal, non-breaking and clean solution would be to allow the following two methods: nullItem return an empty object nullCollection returns an empty array

@lucasres found the solution to this issue. Thank you!

Closing.