[apps-discuss] merge-patch: more examples

["Manger, James H" <[e-mail]>]

The list of test cases in draft-ietf-appsawg-json-merge-patch is a great addition.

A couple more would be worthwhile to illustrate some less intuitive cases:

   ORIGINAL     PATCH                       RESULT
   ----------   -------------------------   ----------------

1. {"e":null}   {"a":1}                     {"e":null,"a":1}

2. {}           {"a":{"bb":{"ccc":null}}}   {"a":{"bb":{}}}

1. shows that a field not mentioned in a patch (eg "e") is unchanged, even when it has a null value.

2. shows that a patch that superficially appears only to be removing a nested field (eg "ccc") can actually create the parent objects on the way to that nested field.


P.S. It might make the examples a bit more readable if "a", "b", "c" where only used as field names, not values (eg {"a":1} instead of {"a":"b"}). It might also be a bit more readable if the same field always had the same value in the original column (eg "a":1, "b":2, "c":[3,1,4], "d":{"dd":{"ddd":4}}, "e":null). 

--
James Manger