protobuf map value is object or array of object - protocol-buffers

Question

I have
message {
message leadsEntity{
optional string name = 1;
}
optional string description = 1;
map <string, leadsEntity> entity = 2;
}
Now I can have 2 types of responses-
// 1st case
{
description : "this is test",
entity : {
key1 : { name : "name1" },
key2 : { name : "name2" }
}
}
Or
// 2nd case
{
description : "this is test",
entity : {
key1 : { name : "name1" },
key2 : [ { name : "name2" } ] //the value in array now
}
}
Now the above given proto message works perfectly for 1st case.
But how to handle 2nd case? where the value is an object array?

Answer 1

I assume by the use of optional that you prefer proto2
Your existing proto is invalid.
Your response types are going to make your life difficult because the entity values are a union of types.
Perhaps something like this:
syntax = "proto2";
message X {
message LeadsEntity{
optional string name = 1;
}
message LeadsEntities {
repeated LeadsEntity leads_entity = 1;
}
message Value {
oneof These {
LeadsEntity leads_entity = 1;
LeadsEntities leads_entities = 2;
}
}
optional string description = 1;
map <string, Value> entity = 2;
}
I gave the root message the name X
I added LeadsEntities to hold the repeated LeadsEntity
I added Value to hold the oneof
from google.protobuf.json_format import MessageToJson
import x_pb2
x = x_pb2.X()
x.description = "this is a test"
x.entity["key1"].leads_entity.name = "name1"
le = x.entity["key2"].leads_entities.leads_entity.add()
le.name = "name2"
print(MessageToJson(x))
Yields:
{
"description": "this is a test",
"entity": {
"key1": {
"leadsEntity": {
"name": "name1"
}
},
"key2": {
"leadsEntities": {
"leadsEntity": [
{
"name": "name2"
}
]
}
}
}
}