title: Google People API "Request mask cannot be empty"
body: <p>I'm attempting to make a request for the profile information of a user logged in via Google OAuth. My request is formed properly, I log in successfully, but when I attempt to make the following request in PHP, I get the error <strong>Request Mask cannot be empty. Valid paths are: ...</strong></p>
  
  <p>However, it is clear from the <a href="https://developers.google.com/people/api/rest/v1/people/get" rel="noreferrer">Google People API people.get documentation</a> that the request mask values are optional, and if not passed, <a href="https://developers.google.com/people/api/rest/v1/RequestMask" rel="noreferrer">will return all values except for people.connections.list</a>. Here is my code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>// The entire OAuth process works up until this point...
  // create the service
  $service = new Google_Service_People($this-&gt;client);
  
  try {
    $results = $service-&gt;people-&gt;get('people/me');
  } catch(\Exception $exception) {
    echo $exception-&gt;getMessage();
    exit;
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here are is the exception message I get from this error:</p>
  
  <p><code>{ "error": { "code": 400, "message": "Request mask can not be empty. Valid paths are: [person.addresses, person.age_ranges, person.biographies, person.birthdays, person.bragging_rights, person.cover_photos, person.email_addresses, person.events, person.genders, person.im_clients, person.interests, person.locales, person.memberships, person.metadata, person.names, person.nicknames, person.occupations, person.organizations, person.phone_numbers, person.photos, person.relations, person.relationship_interests, person.relationship_statuses, person.residences, person.skills, person.taglines, person.urls].", "errors": [ { "message": "Request mask can not be empty. Valid paths are: [person.addresses, person.age_ranges, person.biographies, person.birthdays, person.bragging_rights, person.cover_photos, person.email_addresses, person.events, person.genders, person.im_clients, person.interests, person.locales, person.memberships, person.metadata, person.names, person.nicknames, person.occupations, person.organizations, person.phone_numbers, person.photos, person.relations, person.relationship_interests, person.relationship_statuses, person.residences, person.skills, person.taglines, person.urls].", "domain": "global", "reason": "badRequest" } ], "status": "INVALID_ARGUMENT" } }</code></p>
  
  <p>Can anyone help me out?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>Update 1:</p>
  
  <p>When I try to pass in some value for the request mask, <code>$service-&gt;people-&gt;get('people/me', array("person.names"));</code> I get the exception message: <code>Illegal string offset 'type'</code></p>