SeparatorStyle option to avoid flattening arrays of primitive types

[jdub]

Normally,

{"a": [1, 2, 3], "m": {"key": "value"}}

would be flattened to,

{"a.0": 1, "a.1": 2, "a.2": 3, "m.key": "value"}

But in many cases, it's preferable to leave arrays of primitive types (such as numbers and strings) as they are, e.g.

("a": [1, 2, 3], "m.key": "value"}

The new SeparatorStyle.DoNotFlattenPrimitiveArrays option is off by default so the default behaviour doesn't change. Sadly, that's also why it has to be an ugly negative option.

[jeremywohl]

Hi Jeff. Thanks for your patch. Can you explain the use case for this?

Re the patch, I assume you were trying to avoid a breaking change with this option in SeparatorStyle, where it really belongs as a call param?

[jdub]

Yeah – I have a destination that can't really handle structure (objects), but is totally fine with arrays of primitives.

(I'd even argue that this is a nicer default, because flattened arrays look uuuuugly. But others might require flatness more than they desire beauty. 😄)

[AtakanColak]

A seperator style with "don't flatten arrays" option would be useful (in my case I also need to include bool and nil values to use this PR). I'm also in need of such a functionality. I can add a method on the map produced but it won't be efficient in performance.

Please do take a look at my fork with SkipArrays

[jeremywohl]

@AtakanColak Say more about bool and nil -- I don't see that in your patch.

[AtakanColak]

@jeremywohl It has been almost a year so I can't remember. Might even delete my fork sometime.