Hey I was wondering how I would handle this intera...

# serialization

[Tech]

Hey I was wondering how I would handle this interaction.

I have an API written in TypeScript that returns a data field where in Kotlin I serialize into this basic object

@Serializable
data class PayloadData<T>(
    val error: Boolean,
    val data: T? = null
)

However, sometimes when no data needs to be sent back the data field sent back is undefined, and I try to set the type of PayloadData to Void and kotlinx serialization fails, was wondering if there was a way to handle this case?

[ephemient]

kotlinx.serialization 1.5.0 includes a "serializer" for Nothing, so PayloadData<Nothing>(data = null) should work

[Tech]

Oh really? I thought Nothing represented no operation was done and would just throw an error, I’ll try it out when I can though

[ephemient]

there are no values of type Nothing, but there is null: Nothing?

[Tech]

ah gotcha just use nothing as a sort of proxy to serialize a null