qapi: Add visit_type_null() visitor

Right now, qmp-output-visitor happens to produce a QNull result
if nothing is actually visited between the creation of the visitor
and the request for the resulting QObject.  A stronger protocol
would require that a QMP output visit MUST visit something.  But
to still be able to produce a JSON 'null' output, we need a new
visitor function that states our intentions.  Yes, we could say
that such a visit must go through visit_type_any(), but that
feels clunky.

So this patch introduces the new visit_type_null() interface and
its no-op interface in the dealloc visitor, and stubs in the
qmp visitors (the next patch will finish the implementation).
For the visitors that will not implement the callback, document
the situation. The code in qapi-visit-core unconditionally
dereferences the callback pointer, so that a segfault will inform
a developer if they need to implement the callback for their
choice of visitor.

Note that JSON has a primitive null type, with the single value
null; likewise with the QNull type for QObject; but for QAPI,
we just have the 'null' value without a null type.  We may
eventually want to add more support in QAPI for null (most likely,
we'd use it via an alternate type that permits 'null' or an
object); but we'll create that usage when we need it.

Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
Message-Id: <1461879932-9020-15-git-send-email-eblake@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 12 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/qapi/visitor.h b/include/qapi/visitor.h
index 221163742c..709cca0774 100644
--- a/include/qapi/visitor.h
+++ b/include/qapi/visitor.h
@@ -522,4 +522,16 @@ void visit_type_number(Visitor *v, const char *name, double *obj,
  */
 void visit_type_any(Visitor *v, const char *name, QObject **obj, Error **errp);
 
+/*
+ * Visit a JSON null value.
+ *
+ * @name expresses the relationship of the null value to its parent
+ * container; see the general description of @name above.
+ *
+ * Unlike all other visit_type_* functions, no obj parameter is
+ * needed; rather, this is a witness that an explicit null value is
+ * expected rather than any other type.
+ */
+void visit_type_null(Visitor *v, const char *name, Error **errp);
+
 #endif