fixes from local testing, reducing use of Unmarshal

Author: dehann

src/DataBlobs/entities/AbstractDataEntries.jl

@@ -28,39 +28,39 @@ General Data Store Entry.
     origin::String # E.g. user|robot|session|varlabel
     description::String
     mimeType::String
-    metadata::String
+    metadata::String = ""
     timestamp::ZonedDateTime = now(localzone())
     _type::String = "BlobStoreEntry"
     _version::String = _getDFGVersion()
 end
 
 _fixtimezone(cts::NamedTuple) = ZonedDateTime(cts.utc_datetime*"+00")
 
-# needed for deserialization from JSON during DFG v0.19 transition, see #867
-# TODO this function can likely be removed, since julia automatically tries type conversion on constructors.
-function BlobStoreEntry(;
-    id,
-    label,
-    blobstore,
-    hash,
-    origin,
-    description,
-    mimeType,
-    timestamp,
-    kwargs... # drop excessive fields
-)
-    #
-    BlobStoreEntry(;
-        id=UUID(id),
-        label=Symbol(label),
-        blobstore=Symbol(blobstore),
-        hash,
-        origin,
-        description,
-        mimeType,
-        timestamp=_fixtimezone(timestamp),
-    )
-end
+# # needed for deserialization from JSON during DFG v0.19 transition, see #867
+# # TODO this function can likely be removed, since julia automatically tries type conversion on constructors.
+# function BlobStoreEntry(;
+#     id,
+#     label,
+#     blobstore,
+#     hash,
+#     origin,
+#     description,
+#     mimeType,
+#     timestamp,
+#     kwargs... # drop excessive fields
+# )
+#     #
+#     BlobStoreEntry(;
+#         id=UUID(id),
+#         label=Symbol(label),
+#         blobstore=Symbol(blobstore),
+#         hash,
+#         origin,
+#         description,
+#         mimeType,
+#         timestamp=_fixtimezone(timestamp),
+#     )
+# end
 
 # TODO
 """

src/services/Serialization.jl

@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ end
 function standardizeZDTStrings!(T, interm::Dict)
 
     for (name, typ) in zip(fieldnames(T), T.types)
-        if typ <: ZonedDateTime
+        if typ <: ZonedDateTime && haskey(interm, name)
             namestr = string(name)
             interm[namestr] = getStandardZDTString(interm[namestr])
         end
@@ -144,6 +144,14 @@ end
     $SIGNATURES
 Should be a highly reusable function for any transcoding of intermediate type (or dict) to a desired output type.
 
+Notes:
+- Using Base.@kwdef and JSON3.jl probably has better conversion logic than this function.
+- This function was written to reduce dependency on Unmarshal.jl which was becoming stale.
+
+DevNotes
+- See if this function just be deprecated to use JSON3 or similar.
+- Do better with Union{Nothing, T} types (if this function is not replaced by JSON3)
+
 examples
 ```julia
 Base.@kwdef struct HardType
@@ -200,6 +208,7 @@ function transcodeType(
     # specializations as inner functions (don't have to be inners)
     # these few special cases came up with examples below, note recursions
     _instance(S::Type, x) = S(x)
+    _instance(S::Type{Union{Nothing, UUID}}, x::String) = UUID(x) # special case
     _instance(_::Type{S}, x::S) where S = x # if ambiguous, delete and do alternative `_instance(S::Type, x) = S===Any ? x : S(x)`
     _instance(S::Type{I}, x::AbstractString) where I <: Number = Base.parse(I, x)
     _instance(S::Type{E}, x::AbstractVector) where E <: AbstractVector = _instance.(eltype(E),x)
@@ -452,7 +461,8 @@ function unpackVariable(
             interm = _doparse(bdeInter) # JSON.parse(bdeInter) # bdeInter
             objType = getfield(DistributedFactorGraphs, Symbol(dataElemTypes[k]))
             standardizeZDTStrings!(objType, interm)
-            fullVal = Unmarshal.unmarshal(objType, interm)
+            fullVal = transcodeType(objType, interm)
+            # fullVal = Unmarshal.unmarshal(objType, interm)
             variable.dataDict[k] = fullVal
         end
     end