RPC sendmany first (dummy, empty string) argument is not optional #33182

I need a sanity check on this since #25093 was merged over three years ago and no one seems to have complained yet.

-->  bitcoin-cli -regtest sendmany ''  '{"bcrt1qzsmq9xxmt85uf0nu2qjrptvqdgak38umnj0p4h": 10}'
9a43e18d3e5fcfb36dd6d4832b6ff374f877ac5dd83056dddf5d60147e082a51

-->  bitcoin-cli -regtest sendmany '{"bcrt1qzsmq9xxmt85uf0nu2qjrptvqdgak38umnj0p4h": 10}'
error code: -1
error message:
sendmany ( "" ) {"address":amount,...} ( minconf "comment" ["address",...] replaceable conf_target "estimate_mode" fee_rate verbose )

Certainly looks like the first argument is required:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/2581258ec200efb173ea6449ad09b2e7f1cc02e0/src/wallet/rpc/spend.cpp#L391-L396

...how do you make a first argument optional, anyway?

The dummy first argument dates back to the 'accounts' days, which were removed in 2018 (109e05dcd163b8ddb7f4b3550db6b9ab833). After all this time, I’m tempted to suggest removing the argument outright. We’d just need a clear paragraph in the release notes.

...how do you make a first argument optional, anyway?

You can use named args, by using the -named=1 option:

$ ./bld-cmake/bin/bitcoin-cli -named=1 sendmany amounts='{"hi":1}'

This shows that the arg is correctly marked as optional.

What am I missing?

ah using -named=1 is my answer thanks.