[chef] REST API, data bag items and the "action" key

[Pietro Giorgianni < >]

Hi,

I'm manipulating data bag items using the REST API through a custom, non-ruby client, as documented here: http://docs.opscode.com/api_chef_server.html

When I try to create or update a data bag item containing the key "action" at the main level, that key is thrown away, and I don't see it in the item.

Here's a gist: https://gist.github.com/giorgian/4754737

In practice, I post the following JSON to /data/foo

{

  "id": "bar",

  "key": "value",

  "action": "remove"

}

Then, /data/foo/bar contains this:

{

  "id": "bar",

  "key": "value"

}

Of course, creating a data bag item with the "action" key using knife works fine; I patched the gem to add some logging, and what I found out is that knife sends this body:

{

  "name": "data_bag_item_foo_bar",

  "json_class": "Chef::DataBagItem",

  "chef_type": "data_bag_item",

  "data_bag": "foo",

  "raw_data": {

    "id": "bar",

    "key": "value",

    "action": "remove"

  }

}

I couldn't find any mention of this behavior on the Chef documentation.

I'd be happy to go on and implement my code to act as knife does, but I need to know if this is a well known, stable thing or just a temporary glitch.

Any clues?

pietro