python-jsonschema / python-jsonschema/jsonschema
Greedy (?) object typing leads to semantically wrong error message
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Description
Hi, thanks for a great project!
We've stumbled across an issue with misleading error messages, although I'm not sure if there is a useful fix.
jsonschemaversion:3.2.0- Python:
3.8.5
When you define two objects (e.g., person and entity), which share a number of properties but define others which are mutually exclusive across the two, and one object (say, entity) also requires fields where the other doesn't, properties are reported in a ValidationError as unexpected when from the user perspective, they aren't.
Expected behaviour
Given the definitions
person(properties:person_property(optional),alias(optional))entity(properties:entity_property(required),alias(optional))
and data that introduces an additional property BREAK_ENTITY (which is disallowed via "additionalProperties": false) to an otherwise valid entity data object, I expect the error message to raise the additional key, but not any other (semantically valid) keys.
Actual behaviour
The error messages raises two unexpected keys: the additional one (correct), and entity_property (incorrect).
Without having had a look at the source code, I assume that the additional property trips the error, and then trying to type the object and collecting unexpected properties is greedy, and in this case assumes person whereas we're looking at entity really, which would be valid if only the additional property was removed. I guess changing the heuristic to find the best match may come at a performance penalty though, as you'd have to look at all potential best matches?
This also happens independently from which of the two objects is defined first, but depends on the order of objects in anyOf.
Reproducing the issue
(Minimalized (well, more or less) schema
{
"$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema",
"additionalProperties": false,
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"parties": {
"items": {
"anyOf": [
{
"$ref": "#/definitions/person"
},
{
"$ref": "#/definitions/entity"
}
]
},
"minItems": 1,
"type": "array",
"uniqueItems": true
}
},
"required": [
"parties"
],
"definitions": {
"person": {
"type": "object",
"additionalProperties": false,
"properties": {
"person_property": {
"type": "string",
"minLength": 1
},
"alias": {
"$ref": "#/definitions/alias"
}
}
},
"entity": {
"additionalProperties": false,
"properties": {
"entity_property": {
"type": "string",
"minLength": 1
},
"alias": {
"$ref": "#/definitions/alias"
}
},
"required": [
"entity_property"
],
"type": "object"
},
"alias": {
"type": "string",
"minLength": 1
}
}
}
Valid data
{
"parties": [
{
"entity_property": "Entity",
"alias": "Entity alias"
},
{
"person_property": "Person",
"alias": "Person alias"
}
]
}
Invalid person data (yields expected message)
The following invalid person data breaks and yields the expected error message: jsonschema.exceptions.ValidationError: Additional properties are not allowed ('BREAK_PERSON' was unexpected).
{
"parties": [
{
"entity_property": "Entity",
"alias": "Entity alias"
},
{
"person_property": "Person",
"alias": "Person alias",
"BREAK_PERSON": "BREAK"
}
]
}
ISSUE: Invalid entity data (yields unexpected message)
The following invalid entity data yields the expected error, albeit with an unexpected error message jsonschema.exceptions.ValidationError: Additional properties are not allowed ('BREAK_ENTITY', 'entity_property' were unexpected) (, 'entity_property' being the unexpected part, full trace further below)
{
"parties": [
{
"entity_property": "Entity",
"alias": "Entity alias",
"BREAK_ENTITY": "BREAK"
},
{
"person_property": "Person",
"alias": "Person alias"
}
]
}
Trace
Linebreaks included for legibility.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "repr_bug.py", line 27, in <module>
validate(args.data, args.schema)
File "repr_bug.py", line 14, in validate
jsonschema.validate(instance=data, schema=schema_data)
File "~/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/jsonschema/validators.py", line 934, in validate
raise error
jsonschema.exceptions.ValidationError:
Additional properties are not allowed ('BREAK_ENTITY', 'entity_property' were unexpected)
Failed validating 'additionalProperties' in schema[0]:
{'additionalProperties': False,
'properties': {'alias': {'$ref': '#/definitions/alias'},
'person_property': {'minLength': 1, 'type': 'string'}},
'type': 'object'}
On instance:
{'BREAK_ENTITY': 'BREAK',
'alias': 'Entity alias',
'entity_property': 'Entity'}
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Reproduce the schema and data from the issue through jsonschema.validate, then inspect the validation path in validators.py. Compare how the anyOf branches produce the ValidationError; done should mean invalid entity data reports BREAK_ENTITY without entity_property, with coverage for the demonstrated object-order cases.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- tooling
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100