Given you have a server action

// Server Component
export default function Page() {
  // Server Action
  async function add(amount : BigInt, formData: FormData): BigInt {
    'use server'
    return updateCount((count) => count + amount )
  }
}

you'll receive an error because server actions only support primitives as parameters. If I were to want to use a non primitive type like BigInt, is it possible to register a codec with nextjs to encode/decode the BigInt?

Server actions have to be serializable.

In nexttjs there is no way that I know of to do what your asking. Just stringify it and convert it back on the server action side.

That's my question, is it possible to register custom serialisers (codecs)

ah ok

Negative, and I beleive thats a react limitation, not nextjs.

So I need to provide my own layer for that

Yes sir.

ok cool, thanks for the clarification

disclaimer, this is as far as I know........ I havent had to work with this specific situation

ok, let's see if anyone else chimes in then, admittedly I haven't been able to find anything saying otherwise in my searches

If your googling... I would go to more react route and look up documentation on server actions in react

Nextjs doesnt do much in the way of extending the server actions from base react.

right

it actually says bigint is supported

BigInt is a primative, sorry didnt think about that.

ha, what do you know

I'm still surprised

So were you getting an error? Or just assuming it wouldnt work?

It's pretty clear that you're stuck with the list though

I tried it with another datatype (luxon DateTime) and got the error

Ahhh, yeah. That makes more sense!

I assumed it would be the same with bigint but at least that one works

use epoch time 😄

err unix time, whatever you wanna call it

yeah, maybe that is the way to go

it's a slightly unfortunate constraint on the system though, having to use a limited set of datatypes in the calls to actions

Just remember, all a server action is... its just a post request, so its going to be serialized over the wire.

sure, but with a traditional api you have the opportunity to control serialisation

For sure, I think server actions are pretty new still, im sure we will eventually get the ability to control them a bit more.

it does seem like a pretty natural requirement

Yeah, I forsee in the near future having the ability to use server actions for fetches and not just mutations as well, in a non-asynchronous fashion. To me, the asyncronous nature of server actions seems like a silly and artificial limitation considering.

We already organise our codebase with fetches alongside mutations

and well I know its artificial to a degree as react specifically states its up to the framework.

I haven't explored the line between what react and next.js take responsibility for here

AFAIK, server actions are very un-tainted by nextjs.

I know frameworks have a bit of control, this is where I say they are artificially made to occur one at a time, wonder why the limitation

That does seem a strange constraint, curious where that comes from

It kind of makes sense for mutations, I just dont understand why say its only for mutations.

To me it seems like a half baked feature they intend on expanding on.

It makes sense if that actions are targetted the same state, but aside from that I don't see why they would need to be processed in series.

yeah, early days

use server in no ways indicates that its for mutations only, makes more sense for that to be the catalyst to alot more possibilities

but anyways, I think that mostly covers the question hahah. Ima get back to work. GL 🙂

yes that's very clear now, many thanks

Make sure to mark an answer to the post when you get a min @Cape lion