[OASIS Issue Tracker] Created: (ODATA-412) Consistent representation of empty values

[OASIS Issues Tracker <workgroup_mailer@lists.oasis-open.org>]

Consistent representation of empty values
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                 Key: ODATA-412
                 URL: http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/ODATA-412
             Project: OASIS Open Data Protocol (OData) TC
          Issue Type: Improvement
          Components: OData ATOM Format , OData JSON Format, OData Protocol 
    Affects Versions: V4.0_CSD01
         Environment: [Proposed]
            Reporter: Ralf Handl
             Fix For: V4.0_CSD02


We currently use different representations for empty values.

The consistent cases are:
- empty collections of primitive values, complex values, and entities are represented with 200 OK and the format-specific representation of an empty collection of the appropriate type (<m:value/>, <atom:feed/>, {"value":[]})
- empty primitive values in Atom and JSON are represented with 200 OK and the format-specific representation of a null value (<m:value m:null="true"/> or {"value":null})
- empty complex values in Atom are represented with 200 OK and the Atom representation of a null value (<m:value m:null="true"/>)

The exceptions are:
- empty single entity is currently represented with 204 No Content
- empty complex property is represented with 200 OK and a special NULL payload in JSON ({"odata.metadata": "http://host/service/$metadata#Edm.Null"})

The first exception is because an atom:entry cannot be empty, the second is because we wanted(?) to represent complex type instances as JSON objects without a {"value:...} wrapper and thus need a special representation of an "unwrapped null value".



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