How to provide an example of an object definition in swagger that contains an array as one of its attributes

Question

Referring to the example below, I would like to provide an example of NamedElementArray in its definition. This will require showing an example of an array of NamedElement for the elements attribute.

How do I do that? I can't find details of how to do this in the swagger specification.

swagger: '2.0'

info:
  version: "0.0.0"
  title: Example

definitions:
  Identifier:
    type: string
    format: uuid
  NamedElement:
    type: object
    properties:
      name:
        type: string
      identifier:
        $ref: "#/definitions/Identifier"
    required:
    - name
    - identifier
    example:
      name: Identifier1
      identifier: ab804529-11d0-4781-a49a-3bbbc40243df
  NamedElementArray:
    type: object
    properties:
      name: 
        type: string
      elements:
        type: array
        minLength: 0
        items:
          $ref: "#/definitions/NamedElement"
    required:
    - name
    - elements
    example:
      name: Fred
      elements:

paths:
  /elements/{name}:
    get:
      description: |
        Gets `NamedElement` objects, based on the **name** query param.
      parameters:
        -
          name: name
          in: path
          description: Name of element array to return
          required: true
          type: string
      responses:
        200:
          description: Returns a named element array
          schema:
            $ref: "#/definitions/NamedElementArray"
        default:
          description: Return nothing

Solution

You have to choose between high level examples and low level ones. In Swagger UI, the high level examples precede the local one.

Full example available on Swagger Hub

You can define an example on each property (low level):

Identifier:
    type: string
    format: uuid
    example: Local UUID example

NamedElement:
    type: object
    properties:
        name:
            type: string
            example: Local identifier example
        identifier:
            $ref: "#/definitions/Identifier"
        required:
            - name
            - identifier

NamedElementArray:
    type: object
    properties:
      name: 
          type: string
          example: Local name example
      elements:
          type: array
          minLength: 0
          items:
              $ref: "#/definitions/NamedElement"
    required:
        - name
        - elements

In that case the example will look like this in Swagger UI:

{
  "name": "Local name example",
  "elements": [
    {
      "name": "Local identifier example",
      "identifier": "Local UUID example"
    }
  ]
}

But you can also give a full example on high level like you did in your example on NamedElement:

NamedElementArray:
    type: object
    properties:
        name: 
            type: string
        elements:
            type: array
            minLength: 0
            items:
                $ref: "#/definitions/NamedElement"
    required:
        - name
        - elements
    example:
        name: Fred
        elements:
            - name: Identifier1
              identifier: ab804529-11d0-4781-a49a-3bbbc40243df
            - name: Identifier2
              identifier: zzz4529-11d0-4781-a49a-3bbbc40243df

In that case the example will look like this in Swagger UI:

{
  "name": "Fred",
  "elements": [
    {
      "name": "Identifier1",
      "identifier": "ab804529-11d0-4781-a49a-3bbbc40243df"
    },
    {
      "name": "Identifier2",
      "identifier": "zzz4529-11d0-4781-a49a-3bbbc40243df"
    }
  ]
}