PUT should create parent objects in config when they don't exist

[lolgab]

Imagine I have an empty configuration like:

curl --unix-socket /usr/local/var/run/unit/control.sock localhost/config
{}

I now want to add an application like:

curl -X PUT -d '{
  "type": "external",
  "executable":"/path/to/my/binary"
}' --unix-socket /usr/local/var/run/unit/control.sock localhost/config/applications/app

But what I get is:

{
	"error": "Value doesn't exist."
}

Because there is no applications container. If I create the applications container it works fine:

curl -X PUT -d '{
  "app": {
    "type": "external",
    "executable":"/path/to/my/binary"
  }
}' --unix-socket /usr/local/var/run/unit/control.sock localhost/config/applications

{
	"success": "Reconfiguration done."
}

The problem is that I don't want to mess with other applications that could be currently installed in Unit, I just want to add a new one. What I propose as a different behavior is to add an empty container when you try to PUT a setting that doesn't have already a parent.

So when the current config is {}, running:

curl -X PUT -d '{
  "type": "external",
  "executable":"/path/to/my/binary"
}' --unix-socket /usr/local/var/run/unit/control.sock localhost/config/applications/app

would result in the following config:

{
  "applications": {
    "app": {
      "type": "external",
      "executable":"/path/to/my/binary"
    }
}

[lcrilly]

Thanks for sharing your use case!

This behaviour is consistent for all "top level" objects. The workaround is to create an empty "applications": {} object when "value does not exist". Then child objects can be created by name on the URI.