Better error message when calling BaseProvider.request() without params?

[markmiro]

Environment:
Brave browser with MetaMask v9.8.4 extension installed. Running code in console

---

The following fails with a confusing error: MetaMask - RPC Error: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined

window.ethereum
  .request({
    method: "eth_blockNumber",
  })

However, this succeeds:

window.ethereum
  .request({
    method: "eth_blockNumber",
    params: [],
  })

Some methods like ethereum.request({ method: "eth_requestAccounts" }) don't require params to be set, so I spent an embarrassing of time trying to find out why one call worked and the other didn't.

Context:

I was trying to figure out why a convenience library was failing and figured that going down a level down to the RPC level might help. I tried the most basic RPC request I could think of (getting block number) when I got this error.

Possible solutions:

1. One solution might be for the MetaMask to add params: [] when no params are specified.
2. Another solution might be to add some more error checking to the BaseProvider request method?

[markmiro]

After further research, JSON-RPC calls may be able to omit the params.

A Structured value that holds the parameter values to be used during the invocation of the method. This member MAY be omitted.

Source: https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification