Tolerate empty types array in Watch definitions (#83524)

In 6.x internal system components created Watches with an empty
types array in their definition. Types do not exist in 8.x, so
these system-created Watches would need to be modified in 7.x
to remove the types field. Because doing such modifications as
a secret background task could be risky, instead the 8.x Watch
parser will tolerate and ignore an empty types array. It is
clear that an empty types array can be considered identical to
typeless. Non-empty types arrays will still be considered fatal
errors in 8.x, as silently ignoring them could change the meaning
of the search.

Fixes #83235

docs/changelog/83524.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+pr: 83524
+summary: Tolerate empty types array in Watch definitions
+area: Watcher
+type: bug
+issues:
+ - 83235

x-pack/plugin/watcher/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/watcher/support/search/WatcherSearchTemplateRequest.java

@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ import org.elasticsearch.action.support.IndicesOptions;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.Strings;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.bytes.BytesArray;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.bytes.BytesReference;
+import org.elasticsearch.common.logging.DeprecationCategory;
+import org.elasticsearch.common.logging.DeprecationLogger;
 import org.elasticsearch.core.Nullable;
 import org.elasticsearch.script.Script;
 import org.elasticsearch.script.ScriptType;
@@ -43,6 +45,10 @@ public class WatcherSearchTemplateRequest implements ToXContentObject {
     private final BytesReference searchSource;
     private boolean restTotalHitsAsInt = true;
 
+    private static final DeprecationLogger deprecationLogger = DeprecationLogger.getLogger(WatcherSearchTemplateRequest.class);
+    static final String TYPES_DEPRECATION_MESSAGE =
+        "[types removal] Specifying empty types array in a watcher search request is deprecated.";
+
     public WatcherSearchTemplateRequest(
         String[] indices,
         SearchType searchType,
@@ -190,6 +196,17 @@ public class WatcherSearchTemplateRequest implements ToXContentObject {
                             );
                         }
                     }
+                } else if (TYPES_FIELD.match(currentFieldName, parser.getDeprecationHandler())) {
+                    // Tolerate an empty types array, because some watches created internally in 6.x have
+                    // an empty types array in their search, and it's clearly equivalent to typeless.
+                    if (parser.nextToken() != XContentParser.Token.END_ARRAY) {
+                        throw new ElasticsearchParseException(
+                            "could not read search request. unsupported non-empty array field [" + currentFieldName + "]"
+                        );
+                    }
+                    // Empty types arrays still generate the same deprecation warning they did in 7.x.
+                    // Ideally they should be removed from the definition.
+                    deprecationLogger.critical(DeprecationCategory.PARSING, "watcher_search_input", TYPES_DEPRECATION_MESSAGE);
                 } else {
                     throw new ElasticsearchParseException(
                         "could not read search request. unexpected array field [" + currentFieldName + "]"
@@ -272,6 +289,7 @@ public class WatcherSearchTemplateRequest implements ToXContentObject {
     }
 
     private static final ParseField INDICES_FIELD = new ParseField("indices");
+    private static final ParseField TYPES_FIELD = new ParseField("types");
     private static final ParseField BODY_FIELD = new ParseField("body");
     private static final ParseField SEARCH_TYPE_FIELD = new ParseField("search_type");
     private static final ParseField INDICES_OPTIONS_FIELD = new ParseField("indices_options");

x-pack/plugin/watcher/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/watcher/support/search/WatcherSearchTemplateRequestTests.java

@@ -6,15 +6,18 @@
  */
 package org.elasticsearch.xpack.watcher.support.search;
 
+import org.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchParseException;
 import org.elasticsearch.action.search.SearchType;
 import org.elasticsearch.test.ESTestCase;
 import org.elasticsearch.xcontent.XContentParser;
 import org.elasticsearch.xcontent.json.JsonXContent;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 
 import static java.util.Collections.singletonMap;
+import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.arrayContaining;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.equalTo;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.is;
 
@@ -32,6 +35,49 @@ public class WatcherSearchTemplateRequestTests extends ESTestCase {
         assertTemplate(source, "custom-script", "painful", singletonMap("bar", "baz"));
     }
 
+    public void testFromXContentWithEmptyTypes() throws IOException {
+        String source = """
+                {
+                    "search_type" : "query_then_fetch",
+                    "indices" : [ ".ml-anomalies-*" ],
+                    "types" : [ ],
+                    "body" : {
+                        "query" : {
+                            "bool" : {
+                                "filter" : [ { "term" : { "job_id" : "my-job" } }, { "range" : { "timestamp" : { "gte" : "now-30m" } } } ]
+                            }
+                        }
+                    }
+                }
+            """;
+        try (XContentParser parser = createParser(JsonXContent.jsonXContent, source)) {
+            parser.nextToken();
+            WatcherSearchTemplateRequest result = WatcherSearchTemplateRequest.fromXContent(parser, randomFrom(SearchType.values()));
+            assertThat(result.getIndices(), arrayContaining(".ml-anomalies-*"));
+        }
+    }
+
+    public void testFromXContentWithNonEmptyTypes() throws IOException {
+        String source = """
+                {
+                    "search_type" : "query_then_fetch",
+                    "indices" : [ "my-index" ],
+                    "types" : [ "my-type" ],
+                    "body" : {
+                        "query" : { "match_all" : {} }
+                    }
+                }
+            """;
+        try (XContentParser parser = createParser(JsonXContent.jsonXContent, source)) {
+            parser.nextToken();
+            ElasticsearchParseException e = expectThrows(
+                ElasticsearchParseException.class,
+                () -> WatcherSearchTemplateRequest.fromXContent(parser, randomFrom(SearchType.values()))
+            );
+            assertThat(e.getMessage(), is("could not read search request. unsupported non-empty array field [types]"));
+        }
+    }
+
     public void testDefaultHitCountsDefaults() throws IOException {
         assertHitCount("{}", true);
     }
@@ -61,4 +107,8 @@ public class WatcherSearchTemplateRequestTests extends ESTestCase {
             assertThat(result.getTemplate().getParams(), equalTo(expectedParams));
         }
     }
+
+    protected List<String> filteredWarnings() {
+        return List.of(WatcherSearchTemplateRequest.TYPES_DEPRECATION_MESSAGE);
+    }
 }