WebHDFS DataNode calls fail without parameter createparent

Optional boolean parameters that are not provided in the URL cause the WebHDFS create file command to fail.

curl -i -X PUT "http://hadoop-primarynamenode:50070/webhdfs/v1/tmp/test1234?op=CREATE&overwrite=false"

Response:

HTTP/1.1 307 TEMPORARY_REDIRECT
Cache-Control: no-cache
Expires: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 04:10:13 GMT
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 04:10:13 GMT
Pragma: no-cache
Expires: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 04:10:13 GMT
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 04:10:13 GMT
Pragma: no-cache
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Location: http://hadoop-datanode1:50075/webhdfs/v1/tmp/test1234?op=CREATE&namenoderpcaddress=hadoop-primarynamenode:8020&overwrite=false
Content-Length: 0
Server: Jetty(6.1.26)

Following the redirect:

curl -i -X PUT -T MYFILE "http://hadoop-datanode1:50075/webhdfs/v1/tmp/test1234?op=CREATE&namenoderpcaddress=hadoop-primarynamenode:8020&overwrite=false"

Response:

HTTP/1.1 100 Continue

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 162
Connection: close

{"RemoteException":{"exception":"IllegalArgumentException","javaClassName":"java.lang.IllegalArgumentException","message":"Failed to parse \"null\" to Boolean."}}

The problem can be circumvented by providing both "createparent" and "overwrite" parameters.

However, this is not possible when I have no control over the WebHDFS calls, e.g. Ambari and Hue have errors due to this.