Hi,
The new JSON dump format uses JSON maps for aliases (and many other
things). A JSON map is a thing of the form { ... }. However, if an item
has no aliases, the JSON dump sets its value to the empty *list* [].
This is bad since it makes object-model based JSON parsers, such as
Jackson, trip over this (since the parser must know what type the parsed
output should have, and [] cannot be converted into a map).
It is possible that the problem occurs with other fields as well
(labels, descriptions, etc.).
There are two possible fixes:
* Correctly export empty maps as {}.
* Do not export empty maps at all (leave away the key).
The second is what happens in the API. It would be nice if the JSON
exported by the API would be the same as the JSON exported in the dumps.
If this is news for you, I can also create a bug report.
Cheers,
Markus