"Missing IPLD format" error for known/registred format

[simonovic86]

• Version:
  0.50.2

• Platform:
  Darwin XXXX 19.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 19.5.0: root:xnu-6153.121.2~2/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

• Subsystem:
  The affected core module is the http part of theipfs core. The code that I pinpointed is here.

Severity:

High - The main functionality of the application does not work, API breakage, repo format breakage, etc.

Description:

In situation where ipfs-http-client uses dag-jose codec as a format, the IPFS instance cannot respond, since it cannot find the codec even if it's registered on bootstrap of the instance:

{
	ipld: {formats: [dagJoseFormat]}
}

Note: formats are added to theIPFS node and ipfs-http-client both.

Steps to reproduce the error:

Creating the ipfs-http-client:

      import dagJose from 'dag-jose'
      import multiformats from 'multiformats/basics'
      import legacy from 'multiformats/legacy'
      
      multiformats.multicodec.add(dagJose)
      const format = legacy(multiformats, dagJose.name)

      const ipfsClient = ipfsClient({
        url: opts.ipfsHost, ipld: { formats: [format] }
      })

Creating the IPFS instance:

      import dagJose from 'dag-jose'
      import multiformats from 'multiformats/basics'
      import legacy from 'multiformats/legacy'
      
      multiformats.multicodec.add(dagJose)
      const format = legacy(multiformats, dagJose.name)

      const ipfs = await Ipfs.create({ ipld: { formats: [format] } })

The IPFS instance cannot find the codec for the payload sent via ipfs-http-client.

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[oed]

So the issue seems to be that only hard coded codecs are used here:

js-ipfs/packages/ipfs/src/http/api/resources/dag.js

Lines 209 to 213 in 3a0db1a

	if (!IpldFormats[codec]) {
	throw new Error(`Missing IPLD format "${codec}"`)
	}
	node = await IpldFormats[codec].util.deserialize(data)

When what should happen is that it should use the codecs provided as a config option to the ipfs constructor.

[simonovic86]

I've opened a PR which enables passing custom formats to solve the issue.

[jacobheun]

With custom codec support in 0.52, https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs/tree/ipfs%400.52.0/examples/custom-ipld-formats, can this be closed now?

[oed]

yep!