Some META.json files show up as empty files

[metacpan]

Some META.json files show up as empty files

[richardjharris]

The cause of this is MetaCPAN::Web::Model's request method:

http_request $search ? 'post' : 'get' => $self->{url} . $path,
        body => $search ? encode_json($search) : '',
        persistent => 1,
        sub {
            my $data = shift;
            my $json = eval { decode_json($data) };
            $req->send( $@ ? { raw => $data } : $json );
    };

The /source/ API returns the raw content of the file, and since the file is in JSON format we successfully decode it and send a hashref. In MetaCPAN::Web::Controller::Module:

    $cond->(sub {
        my ($source, $module) = shift->recv;
        $cv->send({
            source => $source->{raw}, module => $module
        });
    });

$source->{raw} is (probably) an empty string.

One possible solution is to use the MIME type. It's application/json for API responses, but text/plain for file contents.