avoid-anonymous-types.md

AvoidAnonymousTypes

Category

SDK Error

Applies to

ARM and Data plane OpenAPI(swagger) specs

Output Message

Inline/anonymous models must not be used, instead define a schema with a model name in the "definitions" section and refer to it. This allows operations to share the models.

Description

This rule appears when you define a model type inline, rather than in the definitions section. If the model represents the same type as another parameter in a different operation, then it becomes impossible to reuse that same class for both operations.

Why the rule is important

Anonymous parameters will be autogenerated as non-descriptive parameters which the client will not be able to share across operations or provide good documentation for, thereby resulting in poor user experience.

How to fix the violation

Move the schema to the definitions section and reference it using $ref.

Impact on generated code

Before

Before

Spec:

…
"parameters":[
    {
        "name": "foo",
        "in": "body",
        "schema": {
            "type": "object",
            "properties": {
                …
            }
        }
    }
]
…

Generated code:

public class FooParameter1 {
    …
}

After

After

Spec:

…
"parameters": [
    {
        "name": "foo",
        "in": "body",
        "schema": {
            "$ref": "#/definition/FooCreationSettings"
        }
    }
],
…
"definitions": {
    "FooCreationSettings": {
        "type": "object",
        "properties": {
            …
        }
    }
}
…

Generated code:

public class FooCreationSettings {
    …
}

Examples

N/A.