Include null fields in deserialized AVRO data

[justinaslelys]

First of all, thank you for providing such a great tool!

I’m encountering an issue with how null fields are displayed in AKHQ when using a Schema Registry connection (type: confluent) and AVRO-serialized data. Specifically, when a field is set to null in our schema and serialized accordingly (e.g., \x00), AKHQ omits the corresponding null field in the deserialized view.

Our schema includes a field like:

{
  "name": "completionDate",
  "type": ["null", "string"]
}

When completionDate is null, it is serialized as \x00. As of my understanding, depending on the deserializer, the presence of null fields can differ. For example, our application (using the Python confluent-kafka client v2.5.3) does include null fields in the resulting data, but AKHQ’s topic view does not display them.

Could you please clarify:
Is this the expected behavior? If not, would you be open to a change that preserves null fields in the displayed message?

I’m not sure how complex this change would be to implement, or if the deserializer used by AKHQ inherently omits null fields. Any guidance you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you again for all your work on AKHQ. It’s a fantastic tool, and I look forward to your feedback.

[AlexisSouquiere]

I think the expected behaviour (skipping null values / showing null values) should be configurable.
AKHQ displays a pretty version of the message (including for timestamps, how union fields are displayed too). I started to work on but didn't finish it.
Are you interested only by the null fields or to completely disable the pretty print to show the raw message ?

[justinaslelys]

I agree that skipping null values vs showing null values could be configurable.
Disabling pretty print - it's not something I would want to achieve, but let's say having a button to copy raw message to clipboard would be nice. Currently, when I click on "Copy" icon, it goes to produce screen.