swagger-core treats relative refs without leading "." as internal refs

[mkistler]

If the value of a $ref is a relative reference but does not start with ".", the swagger core (specifically GenericRef) treats it as an internal ref. E.g.

"$ref" : "./path/to/model.json#/thing"

is treated as a relative URI but

"$ref": "path/to/model.json#/thing"

is treated as internal.

I did research the syntax of $ref -- starting from the Swagger 2.0 spec, then to the JSON Schema spec, ending in IETF RFC 3986 Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax -- and as best I can tell, a relative reference does not need to start with "." to be considered a relative reference.

[mkistler]

Just found #1977 which is more or less a dup of this.

Unfortunately, the fix (in swagger-api/swagger-parser#307) appears to only work for properties, and not paths, parameters, definitions, or responses.

[fehguy]

I'm not sure why this would be in this project. Are you parsing a specification that already exists? If so, please open this on the parser. Swagger core won't generate any $ref values like what you're describing.

[mkistler]

I wrote the bug against this project because It is theGenericRef class in this project that is broken, and this can be seen by adding tests for the cases I described to the GenericRefsTests. E.g.,

    @Test(description = "it should correctly identify relative refs")
    public void identifyRelativeRefs() {
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.DEFINITION, "./path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.DEFINITION, "./path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.DEFINITION, "../path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.DEFINITION, "../path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.DEFINITION, "path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);   // fails
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.DEFINITION, "path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE); // fails
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PARAMETER, "./path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PARAMETER, "./path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PARAMETER, "../path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PARAMETER, "../path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PARAMETER, "path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);  // fails
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PARAMETER, "path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);  // fails
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.RESPONSE, "./path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.RESPONSE, "./path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.RESPONSE, "../path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.RESPONSE, "../path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.RESPONSE, "path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);  // fails
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.RESPONSE, "path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);  // fails
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PATH, "./path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PATH, "./path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PATH, "../path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PATH, "../path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PATH, "path/to/model.json"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);  // fails
        assertRefFormat(new GenericRef(RefType.PATH, "path/to/model.json#/thing"), RefFormat.RELATIVE);  // fails
    }

And, yes, I am parsing an existing specification. So fixing this in the parser as was done for #1977 is sufficient for my purposes ... as long as it is implemented for all the element types.

[marcelstoer]

I'm not sure why this would be in this project [...] please open this on the parser.

It actually started over in the parser project. For affected users it doesn't matter much where it's fixed - as long as it gets fixed at all.