Tracking Issue - Some words are not handled well for Model names (Pluralization, ect) and reserved words

[johannpinson]

Edited by @derrickmehaffy on 2021/03/29

This issue has been converted to a global tracking issue regarding certain english or other language words that fail to work when building models. There are various examples, and for the moment the workarounds mean excluding these words from use and doing things like:

news => newsItem ect

---

Informations

• Node.js version: 8.9.1
• npm version: 5.6.0
• Strapi version: 3.0.0-alpha.12.1.3
• Database: Mongo v3.4.9
• Operating system: MacOS 10.13.4

What is the current behavior?
When I create a new content type with a name which have the same plural version, the API generate will loop into a 500

Steps to reproduce the problem

• Create a new content type named "Fish" (or "News")
• Use a GraphQL IDE or look the terminal
  

What is the expected behavior?
The problem is that some english words have a specific plural behavior (like child/children) or have the same orthograph
As example : https://github.com/atteo/evo-inflector/blob/master/src/main/java/org/atteo/evo/inflector/English.java#L131

Suggested solutions

Best solution:
Disallow to use "words" which can have an different plural/single mode (ex: fish, news, etc.)

Another solution is to add a flag "all" in front, a.k.a "allFish" (but it add a 2nd behavior so i don't think it's the best solution

---

• I'm sure that this feature hasn't already been referenced.

[Aurelsicoko]

Great question... It's complicated because we're going to follow the OpenCRUD specs and this case doesn't seem to be handled. I'm going to ask how we should deal with this case.

[johannpinson]

I know, i already have the problem with Prisma (who manages the OpenCRUD docs) about this problem: prisma/prisma1#1772
In fact, the use a scala library to detect singular/plural words and blocks some of them.

[Aurelsicoko]

@johannpinson Thank you for sharing the issue on Prisma. I think the OpenCRUD specs could evolve for fixing that kind of issues. I'm not sure that excluding words is the right way to solve it. How many words are concerned by it?

[johannpinson]

@Aurelsicoko
Actually, Prisma blocks words which are invariable.

And in the OpenCRUD doc, it talks about using the java library evo-inflector (because Prisma is built with Scala/Sangria) and it lists 51 words invariable.

Moreover, it looks like Strapi use the pluralize lib, so we can detect if the word have a plural way.

[Aurelsicoko]

I understand but blocking words is not an optimal solution because as a workaround we can add the prefix all for these words or change the specs to make sure the plural queries are harmonized whatever the word used. It should be specified in the specs.

[MartinMuzatko]

Have the same problem.

I get the following stack trace:

[2018-08-15T14:48:37.214Z] debug POST /graphql (7 ms)
Error: Field Query.species can only be defined once.
    at assertValidSchema (~test/plugins/graphql/node_modules/graphql/type/validate.js:82:11)
    at Object.validate (~test/plugins/graphql/node_modules/graphql/validation/validate.js:58:35)
    at doRunQuery (~test/plugins/graphql/node_modules/apollo-server-core/dist/runQuery.js:111:42)
    at ~test/plugins/graphql/node_modules/apollo-server-core/dist/runQuery.js:21:56
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:68:7)
[2018-08-15T14:48:40.397Z] debug POST /graphql (10 ms)

[Aurelsicoko]

@MartinMuzatko Try to find another word for this model until we find a viable solution.

[MartinMuzatko]

Sure - already did. I just hate to abuse the english language @Aurelsicoko

[kret13]

Any update on this seems News keyword cant still be used as content type name?

[Aurelsicoko]

@kret13 No update for now... You should find another name for the content type as a workaround ;)

[davidkartuzinski]

@kret13 - may I suggest that "news" isn't really a great name in general for a content type. "News Article" or "News Post" or "News Release" are more description and more user friendly. Consider that you may syndicate your news. You may have different content types for a News Snippet versus a News Article versus a News release.

I do understand also just using "news" as this will have a specific meaning to you and your team.

[emahuni]

yah the sort of resulting solution to this is issue is wrecking havoc with the Graphql plugin and crashes Strapi. See issue #3695.

[emahuni]

@kret13 - may I suggest that "news" isn't really a great name in general for a content type. "News Article" or "News Post" or "News Release" are more description and more user friendly. Consider that you may syndicate your news. You may have different content types for a News Snippet versus a News Article versus a News release.

I do understand also just using "news" as this will have a specific meaning to you and your team.

what about pants or scissors? I think the idea here is that it should just handle anything thrown at it fine. I think the actual best solution here is a hybrid 'all' prefix, maybe it could be done only for words that result to a tantum, whether singularia or pluralaria. eg: team => teams, fish => allFish, news => allNews

or just do the Golum way, sheep => sheepsies 🤣

[MartinMuzatko]

It would be sufficient for me to be notified on content type creation, that this can't be pluralized properly ;)

[emahuni]

It would be sufficient for me to be notified on content type creation, that this can't be pluralized properly ;)

exactly! Then once told, if you choose to continue you are notified that its plural form will be "allNAME", sometimes you don't want to change or can't change it to anything else remember that.

pants is a good example

[emahuni]

@kret13 - may I suggest that "news" isn't really a great name in general for a content type. "News Article" or "News Post" or "News Release" are more description and more user friendly. Consider that you may syndicate your news. You may have different content types for a News Snippet versus a News Article versus a News release.

I do understand also just using "news" as this will have a specific meaning to you and your team.

oh another thing is you can't define "newsArticle" as a content type, you can only do "newsarticle" as you can't specify caps in the name field, nor can you do "news_article". I don't know why exactly this is the case, but this deters your efforts and is super weird considering we need to specify such content types as "newsArticle".

[DarkTraveler]

content type "news" dropped strapi))

Error: Field "Query.news" can only be defined once.
at assertValidSDL (/mnt/c/work/axios/node_modules/graphql/validation/validate.js:80:11)
at Object.buildASTSchema (/mnt/c/work/axios/node_modules/graphql/utilities/buildASTSchema.js:69:34)

[prawee]

same same solved by change to another name such as "post"

[florentbolo]

Try with "series" had a 400
Try with a space before : " series", it worked and removed automatically the space in the collection name 🙃

[a-stein]

Whilst this issue is completely understandable, I think it would help to have a more useful feedback for the CMS user than "an error occurred". In fact, validation on the collection name as you type it would probably make sense!

"news" is going to be a very common collection people try to make (and actually, pointing out that it should be a singular like NewsItem quickly helps grasp the what/why it's wrong). I was 5 minutes into trying strapi for the first time and it didn't give me a first good impression to hit a completely nondescript error message

Just ran in the exactly same problem by trying to create a "News" collection. Did a bit research and ended up here.

I think a more meaningful error message would definitely help. There are probably lots of people that ran into the same issue and ditched Strapi afterwards.

[derrickmehaffy]

Summery of related (closed/duplicate) issues:

• Better error message on adding News as a Collection Type #8060
• Create collection type - "s" finishing-words forbidden? #8646
• Creating a collection type named "series" returns an error #8713
• an error occured when create collection type named manga #9540
• Cannot name Content Type "staff" #7187
• (Russian cyrillic) ERROR on save - Content Type name cannot be pluralized #7098
• Error during creation of collection in Content-Types builder  #9266
• Add Content-Types Builder documentation in User Guide documentation#199
• Error: Field "Query.news" can only be defined once. #4289
• Get 400 error while creating collection type with name 'news' #10327
• Pluralize singular doesn't work #10363
• Unable to update single type if one of its fields is named "where" #10710
• Duplicated collection name, server won't start. #10929
• Errors not displayed in admin #11235
• Add static list of reserved names #11434
• Strapi doesn't check for reserved words "Media" #5464
• Naming a component as plural of other component throws error #12330
• Creating a field called locale when localisation is enabled automatically deletes it #10181
• Can't create a field named ID in a component #12876
• Adding same component in plural form corrupts table #13182
• Dynamic zones with components that have fields with the same name cause problems #9150
• Plugin with same name as collection blocks api permissions for collection #10357
• [v4] Strapi crash after creating components and attribute with same name #11909

[derrickmehaffy]

This Issue is now being closed and locked as we are breaking it up into two different tracking issues:

Reserved Words: #16222
Pluralization Issues: #16223