Proposal: Multiple $ref within single object using Object.assign()

[erikfox]

It would be very useful to be able to merge references within an object:

// JSON
{
  combinedObj: {
    $ref: [ 
      '#first/reference', 
      '#second/reference' 
    ]
  }
}

# YAML
combinedObj:
  $ref:
    - '#first/reference'
    - '#second/reference'

This would use Object.assign(), which also provides a convention in the case of objects with the same properties:

Merging objects with same properties

var o1 = { a: 1, b: 1, c: 1 };
var o2 = { b: 2, c: 2 };
var o3 = { c: 3 };

var obj = Object.assign({}, o1, o2, o3);
console.log(obj); // { a: 1, b: 2, c: 3 }

The properties are overwritten by other objects that have the same properties later in the parameters order.

[danitome24]

I'm interested too!

[handrews]

See #151 and #119 for combinations when additionalProperties: false, #98 (for a limited form of merging with annotation keywords) and #15 (arbitrary merging/patching, which has a lot of opposition and so is unlikely to be accepted).

[handrews]

BTW, JSON is not JavaScript, and JSON Schema implementations are written in many languages, so JSON Schema features should not be described in terms of JavaScript/ECMAScript features like Object.assign(). Media types for patching (as referenced in #15 and #98) are a more appropriate reference point.

[epoberezkin]

@handrews I think the consensus is moving towards keeping merging functionality outside of the spec? In any case I'd close it as essentially a duplicate of other similar ideas...

[handrews]

@epoberezkin I think you are right about the outside-of-the-spec approach, at least for non-schema-aware general JSON merging (#15 and to a lesser degree #98). And despite coming up with #119 I'm not actually a huge fan of it! Anyway, this issue should be closed as a duplicate unless @erikfox or other commenters think we're missing something in those other issues.

[handrews]

@erikfox it's been over a month since we suggested closing this in favor of other pre-existing issues, so I'm taking your lack of response as being OK with closing it.

Please feel free to re-open if you think I'm missing something- just include a comment about what still needs to be addressed. But mostly I think this is a dup of #15 with an alternate syntax.