Cannot update action kind if runtime is no longer supported

[cjelger]

I tried to update the kind of an action that has an old runtime that has been removed, but this fails with the following error message:

$ wsk action update foo --kind nodejs:10
error: Unable to create action 'foo': The 'nodejs:10-fat' runtime is no longer supported. You may read and delete but not update or invoke this action. (code Jhgg2GzINamHp5yxACGBXjCbcViyU8bD)

The nodejs:10-fat is indeed an old runtime that has been removed. I found the error message at:

https://github.com/apache/incubator-openwhisk/blob/master/common/scala/src/main/scala/org/apache/openwhisk/http/ErrorResponse.scala#L56-L63

so it looks like a backend issue and not an issue from the wsk CLI.

I'd have expected that it is possible to update the kind in order to update all actions that use some deprecated runtime without having to redeploy the code.

cc: @csantanapr as discussed on Slack

[cjelger]

I'm not a scala developer and it definitely looks weird to me (something like a merge between ruby and perl), but it seems the issue is coming from:
https://github.com/apache/incubator-openwhisk/blob/master/core/controller/src/main/scala/org/apache/openwhisk/core/controller/Actions.scala#L505

[rabbah]

Thanks @cjelger for reporting this - we should make it possible to update an action to a non-deprecated kind. The LOC you link to is the right place to check if the update should be allowed.

[ddragosd]

update ... without having to redeploy the code.

👍 to this. there are other attributes or flags that could be updated as well .