Unused message properties are being defaulted

[respinha]

Hello.

If I send a message via gRPC which doesn't have all of its properties set, they are being defaulted to a null/empty value. I've modified the officially provided example to simulate this issue.
I included some more properties in the HelloReply message

message HelloReply {
  string message = 1;
  double number_property = 2;
  string string_property = 3;
  repeated string array_property = 4;
  message NestedMsg {
  	string property = 1;
  }
  NestedMsg nested_property = 5;
}

and I just added a small print statement to dynamic_codegen/greeter_client.js

console.log('Total message:', JSON.stringify(response));

and it prints:

Total message: {"message":"Hello world","number_property":0,"string_property":"","array_property":[],"nested_property":null}

So, all properties are being defaulted to 0/""/[]/null. Is this the expected behaviour? I thought it could also be a protobuf.js-specific issue.
In my case, this behaviour is not desirable as in some cases I override existing data in my system with data from protobuf messages and if those properties are defaulted I might even override valid data with a null or empty value.

If this is the expected workflow for gRPC messages, can it be turned off?

[murgatroid99]

This is the expected behavior of protobuf, as documented here. Currently, gRPC does not provide a way to change that, but I am working on a new package (proposed here) that will provide that option among other things.

[respinha]

I didn't notice it in the documentation, thanks, @murgatroid99. I'll wait for the new package then.

[nicolasnoble]

The new @grpc/proto-loader package has been published. Could you tell us if this helps with your problem ?

[respinha]

Hey, @nicolasnoble, thanks for the notice.

However, when I try to apply the package definition as in the example within Typescript code, I get a type definition error:

error TS2339: Property 'loadPackageDefinition' does not exist on type 'typeof "grpc"'.

[murgatroid99]

We've published version 1.11.1 which includes those definitions in the TypeScript types file.

[respinha]

Hmm, I updated to version 1.11.1 and when I run tsc -d I get

node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1307,61): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.
node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1309,54): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.
node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1311,61): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.
node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1349,82): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.
node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1351,55): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.
node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1353,39): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.
node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1355,40): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.
node_modules/grpc/index.d.ts(1357,41): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'function'.

[Crevil]

This is fixed with #307 but not released yet

[respinha]

I fixed the typings locally in order to perform tests.
It seems to work as expected!

[nicolasnoble]

@respinha-ribeiro there's an issue with node 10 (nodejs/node#20258) that prevents us from running tests with node 10 at the moment, so we can't legitimately recommend using node 10 with gRPC just yet. This will require a new release of node 10.

[respinha]

Thank you for the notice. We are using Node 9 anyway and it all seems fine.