error undefined method 'version' for #<Array:0x0000000b9db290> about chef_client_updater HOT 10 CLOSED

@wrightp it looks like we're getting scalars or arrays of scalars back from the mixlib-install API here, depending on conditions, which should probably be fixed in mixlib-install so it returns either an array or a scalar?

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#artifact_info will return a scalar if an exact artifact is found based on the query. If multiple artifacts match the query it will return an array of scalars for all matching artifacts. The team has had several discussions on whether to always return an array or to behave as it does now. If you have input please share.

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it should be always array.

i'd actually state more strongly that ruby return types should be considered like the /should/ be strongly typed so they're predictable. also some of the positively worst bugs i've seen in the chef client codebase have come from having instance variables like @url duck-typing and being settable to either a String or a URI -- which is slick and works fine until it all goes horribly wrong and become nearly impossible for smart people to reason about the behavior. i'm actually somewhat skeptical as well about automatic coercion on the input side of methods, and the stuff like #to_s'ing an input parameter so you can use strings, or symbols or anything that stringifies is convenient but also can be very annoying down the road. sometimes its better to be strict and only accept one or the other and force the caller to do the explicit coercion (its possible that most of the time i've seen that go badly is the prior example where state gets stored which can be symbol, a string, or any other object that #to_ses without explicit coercion and then down the road you buy yourself a heap of pain when someone feeds you a String when conventionally everyone has been using symbols and some consumer of the state explodes because you didn't understand the contract on the state was so loose).

TL;DR: strongly typed languages have some very good points.

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Thanks. I concur. I'll propose this for 4.0.

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its easy enough to coerce it to an array here as well, so i can fix this bug and get this issue closed

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so @wrightp do i want .first or .last? i'm assuming .first?

Mixlib::Versioning.parse(Array.new(mixlib_install.artifact_info).first.version)

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I have always used first in this case. All artifacts will be of the same version

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ah i get it, cool.

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To elaborate... The scalar value will be returned based on platform, platform version, architecture, product, product version, channel. The array will return all available platform permutations of channel, product, product versions if no platform information is provided to the constructor.

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@lamont-granquist Is 3.x going to be released soon with this fix in it?

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