[🐛 Bug]: [dotnet]: `RemoteSessionSettings` should allow `JsonNode` metadata settings

[RenderMichael]

What happened?

Selenium should accept System.Text.Json types, since that's what is used internally to serialize the request.

(It would also be nice to add explicit overloads to RemoteSessionSettings.AddMetadataSetting so it's clear what types are accepted and what types aren't.)

How can we reproduce the issue?

using OpenQA.Selenium;
using System.Text.Json.Nodes;

var remoteSessionSettings = new RemoteSessionSettings();
remoteSessionSettings.AddMetadataSetting("example", JsonNode.Parse("true"));

Relevant log output

System.ArgumentException: 'Metadata setting value must be JSON serializable. (Parameter 'settingValue')'

Operating System

Windows 11

Selenium version

.NET Selenium.WebDriver 4.26.1

What are the browser(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

N/A (didn't get that far)

What are the browser driver(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

N/A

Are you using Selenium Grid?

No

[github-actions]

@RenderMichael, thank you for creating this issue. We will troubleshoot it as soon as we can.

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Thank you!

[nvborisenko]

Oh no! Many years ago (20 years?), I didn't know what was happing in the world of json serialization (I was yang, and didn't know about selenium). Today, we are on the road to be AOT compatible, and you are bringing great value in this area. To be AOT compatible we should refactor existing json serialization, which is object based, to be ... just AOT compatible. To archive this goal we started from the easiest way: just add all well-known (read it as very popular) types to the serialization context. You know that adding absolutely all types into serialization context is "way to hell". If user has issue, then we will:

• or add known type into context
• or ask user to use any another available known primitive type (like in this particular case it would be bool)

We cannot add more and more infinitely. The next big step will be making commands/responses strongly typed.

[RenderMichael]

I understand the potential trap of trying to add each and every type to the serialization context. Refactoring away from the object-based approach is a good approach.

In my opinion, this is a special case, because there is an internal method IsJsonSerializable that checks all the types for "serializability" (which doesn't make sense to me, models should be accepted) and the operation throws an exception.

The problem happens with the migration from Newtonsoft to System.Text.Json. The following will have strange results:

var jToken = JToken.Parse("\"abc\"");
var jsonNode = JsonNode.Parse("\"abc\"");

var remoteSessionSettings = new RemoteSessionSettings();
remoteSessionSettings.AddMetadataSetting("example", jToken); // works
remoteSessionSettings.AddMetadataSetting("example", jsonNode); // throws

This is because Newtonsoft is very loose with type restrictions, and will do its best to make things work, especially when the token is typed as object. In contrast, STJ is very "by the rules" and strongly encourages strongly-typed coding (in general this is a good approach, as we see with the AOT migration).

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity since it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.