Inconsistency in API for field role/device

[leahoswald]

NetBox version

v2.9.9

Python version

3.6

Steps to Reproduce

• Open a VM in the API view: The role field is called role
• Open a device in the API view: The role field is called device_role

Expected Behavior

I would expect that both fields are called the same (role) because they are linking to the same data.

Observed Behavior

The device field is called device_role and the VM field is called role

[jeremystretch]

It doesn't seem like the hassle of introducing a breaking change like this would be worthwhile just to achieve consistency with another model.

[leahoswald]

Of course it's a breaking change. On the other hand it means extra handling for every code that works with both devices and VMs. For example if you want to generate monitoring config from it. I understand that it is to much for a normal release but maybe if there is a future release with other braking changes it would be an opportunity to fix it. It would be the first braking change on the API (I remember fixing some code because of a change in the state variable.)

[jeremystretch]

On the other hand it means extra handling for every code that works with both devices and VMs.

These are always going to require separate logic, as they are different models. Renaming the device_role field won't change that.

[jeremystretch]

Flagging this for milestone assignment to potentially handle in the future. We could potentially implement a getter & setter to maintain backward compatibility across releases, however I'm not sure what potential pitfalls we'd run into regarding Django's ORM's behavior.

[abhi1693]

Would it fine if a field is renamed and this is introduced as a breaking change for v3.5? I can submit a PR if that's accepted as a solution

[ryanmerolle]

This could be a good candidate for 3.6

[abhi1693]

I'm going to try to make the field backward-compaitible for the API and ORM access. If that's possible, should be able to ship this with v3.6