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Typed WQL results: map CIM values to Java objects instead of strings #194
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Description
Follow-up to #189 (PR #193), where WMI array properties were fixed to come back as a single string joined with | (configurable with WinRMClient.Builder.arraySeparator(String)).
Problem
Every WQL value is exposed as a String, whatever its CIM type. Consumers parse numbers, booleans, dates and now |-joined arrays themselves:
WqlRow.get(String)is declaredObjectbut always returns aString.- An array property is a joined string: a single-element array is indistinguishable from a scalar, and an element that contains the separator is ambiguous.
NULLis an empty string, indistinguishable from an empty string value.- CIM datetimes arrive in the WS-Management form (
<cim:Datetime>2024-05-01T12:34:56.789Z</cim:Datetime>forCIM_DATETIMEvalues, or an interval), which nobody wants to parse by hand.
Proposal
A typed result variant where the row values are native Java objects, alongside the existing string-based API (which stays the default, and the only one for the legacy WinRMWqlExecutor.getRows() / List<List<String>>).
Suggested shape, to be refined:
- Opt in per query, e.g.
client.wql(query).typed().execute(), or aWqlRow.typed(String)/WqlRow.list(String)accessor family; the legacyList<Map<String, Object>>ofWindowsRemoteExecutor.executeWqlcould also carry typed values under an opt-in flag, soWinRMWqlExecutorkeeps its strings. - Mapping from the type information WS-Management gives us. The instance XML carries no
xsi:type; the CIM type must come from the class schema (a WSManGetof the class definition,winrm get wmi/...?__CLASS, or thep:XML schema), or from the value form (<cim:Datetime>wrapper,xsi:nil, repeated elements).
Suggested mapping:
| CIM type | Java |
|---|---|
string, char16 |
String |
boolean |
Boolean |
sint8/sint16/sint32/sint64, uint8/uint16/uint32 |
Integer / Long (uint64 → BigInteger or Long) |
real32/real64 |
Float / Double |
datetime |
java.time.Instant / OffsetDateTime for timestamps, Duration for intervals |
reference |
String (the object path) |
| embedded object | nested WqlRow |
| array of any of the above | List<T> |
NULL (xsi:nil="true") |
null |
Open questions
- Where the CIM type information comes from without an extra round trip per query (cache the class schema per client and class?).
- Whether the WS-Management datetime encoding is consistent across Windows versions (2008 R2 through 2022 are available as test hosts).
- Whether the CLI should emit JSON arrays/numbers/booleans/null when typed values are available (today it emits strings only).
Not in scope
The string API stays as it is: the | join and the empty-string NULL are documented behavior since 2.3.00.
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