[QC-1297] Accept pure json as value instead of a string containing json.

A more elegant way would be to use a variant in the mCustomParameters data structure. However, it implies making quite many changes to check what we are dealing with in every existing method, and some of them would need heavy refactoring (e.g. find()). Given that the overhead of the proposed solution is minimal, I would stick with it.

Author: Barthelemy

Framework/src/CustomParameters.cxx

@@ -16,6 +16,8 @@
 #include <vector>
 #include <boost/property_tree/json_parser.hpp>
 
+using namespace std;
+
 namespace o2::quality_control::core
 {
 
@@ -202,7 +204,20 @@ void CustomParameters::populateCustomParameters(const boost::property_tree::ptre
   for (const auto& [runtype, subTreeRunType] : tree) {
     for (const auto& [beamtype, subTreeBeamType] : subTreeRunType) {
       for (const auto& [key, value] : subTreeBeamType) {
-        set(key, value.get_value<std::string>(), runtype, beamtype);
+        // Check if value has children (thus it is json)
+        if (value.empty()) { // just a simple value
+          set(key, value.get_value<std::string>(), runtype, beamtype);
+        } else {
+          // It's some json, serialize it to string
+          std::stringstream ss;
+          boost::property_tree::write_json(ss, value, false);
+          std::string jsonString = ss.str();
+          // Remove trailing newline if present
+          if (!jsonString.empty() && jsonString.back() == '\n') {
+            jsonString.pop_back();
+          }
+          set(key, jsonString, runtype, beamtype);
+        }
       }
     }
   }

Framework/test/testCustomParameters.cxx

@@ -18,8 +18,12 @@
 #include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>
 #include <boost/property_tree/json_parser.hpp>
 #include "getTestDataDirectory.h"
+#include "QualityControl/InfrastructureGenerator.h"
+
 #include <iostream>
 #include <catch_amalgamated.hpp>
+#include <Configuration/ConfigurationFactory.h>
+#include <DataSampling/DataSampling.h>
 
 using namespace o2::quality_control::core;
 using namespace std;
@@ -201,6 +205,28 @@ TEST_CASE("test_load_from_ptree")
   CHECK(cp.at("myOwnKey") == "myOwnValue");
   CHECK(cp.at("myOwnKey1", "PHYSICS") == "myOwnValue1b");
   CHECK(cp.atOptional("asdf").has_value() == false);
+
+  string json = R"""(
+  [
+                  {
+                    "name": "mean_of_histogram",
+                    "title": "Mean trend of the example histogram",
+                    "graphAxisLabel": "Mean X:time",
+                    "graphYRange": "0:10000",
+                    "graphs" : [
+                      {
+                        "name": "mean_trend",
+                        "title": "mean trend",
+                        "varexp": "example.mean:time",
+                        "selection": "",
+                        "option": "*L PLC PMC"
+                      }
+                    ]
+                  }
+                ]
+)""";
+  auto value = cp.getOptionalPtree("myOwnKey3");
+  CHECK(value.has_value() == true);
 }
 
 TEST_CASE("test_default_if_not_found_at_optional")

Framework/test/testWorkflow.json

@@ -28,7 +28,24 @@
           "default": {
             "default": {
               "myOwnKey": "myOwnValue",
-              "myOwnKey2": "myOwnValue2"
+              "myOwnKey2": "myOwnValue2",
+              "myOwnKey3": [
+                {
+                  "name": "mean_of_histogram",
+                  "title": "Mean trend of the example histogram",
+                  "graphAxisLabel": "Mean X:time",
+                  "graphYRange": "0:10000",
+                  "graphs" : [
+                    {
+                      "name": "mean_trend",
+                      "title": "mean trend",
+                      "varexp": "example.mean:time",
+                      "selection": "",
+                      "option": "*L PLC PMC"
+                    }
+                  ]
+                }
+              ]
             }
           },
           "PHYSICS": {