How can I pass values to Rest API with new line and special characters

[hetalvadanlal]

Hi,

We have a unique requirement to communicate create an incident from one ServiceNow instance to other ServiceNow instance

The issue we are facing is that there are some fields like work notes and description which have new line character.

Whenever there there is a new line being set using "setStringParameter("variable_name", 'variable value with new line')", the incident creation does not happen

Below is the script

var r = new RESTMessage('TestIncidents', 'post');

r.setStringParameter("short_description", current.short_description);

r.setStringParameter("u_affected_user", current.u_affected_user);

r.setStringParameter("location", current.location);

r.setStringParameter("impact", current.impact);

r.setStringParameter("urgency", current.urgency);

r.setStringParameter("description", current.description);

r.setStringParameter("work_notes", current.work_notes);

r.setStringParameter("u_category", current.u_category);

r.setStringParameter("u_classification_level_3", current.u_classification_level_3);

r.setStringParameter("service_offering", current.service_offering);

r.setStringParameter("cmdb_ci",current.cmdb_ci);

r.setStringParameter("u_requestor", current.u_requestor);

r.setStringParameter("u_preferred_contact_number", current.u_requestor);

//r.setStringParameter("work_notes", current.work_notes.getJournalEntry(-1).toString);

var responser = r.execute();

gs.log("getBody: " + responser.getBody());

gs.log("getStatusCode: " + responser.getStatusCode());

gs.log("getHeaders " + responser.getHeaders());

Below is the log

getBody:{"error":{"message":"Exception while reading request","detail":"Verify Request body and Content-type headers. Not able to parse request"},"status":"failure"}

getStatusCode: 400

getHeaders {Date=Mon, 29 Dec 2014 03:35:50 GMT, Transfer-Encoding=chunked, Set-Cookie=BIGipServerpool_predev1bhpbio=421822474.35646.0000; path=/, X-Cnection=close, Content-Type=application/json, Server=ServiceNow}

Any ideas or inputs are highly welcomed

[dalemellor]

Hi Hetal,

Good question! I've struggled with this myself.

Apparently it's not enough to escape the new line using \n alone. I've found that it does work if you escape \n (new line) AND \r (return).

I have a hunch that this will work for you:

var r = new RESTMessage('ESMIncidents', 'post');



function escapeSpecialChars(jsonString) {

       return jsonString.replace(/\n/g, "\\n")

                   .replace(/\r/g, "\\r");

}



r.setStringParameter("description", escapeSpecialChars(current.description));

Cheers,
Dale

[tltoulson]

Hi Dale,

As you indicated, escaping the newline is not enough.   However, it will likely also not be enough to escape the return either.   For instance, if you have quote marks in your string, it can cause malformed json as well.   This is due to the JSON spec which states that a string can contain any Unicode characters except the double quote, "\", or control characters.

I mention this because the actual process for JSON escaping a string is a little more complicated but thankfully is already encapsulated within the JSON script include via the encode function.   For reference, here is some helpful info on JSON formatting.

[tltoulson]

Hi Hetal,

You are attempting to transmit JSON, but any newline character will cause a problem if it is not properly escaped in JSON.   There is an easy way to do this:

var r = new RESTMessage('TestIncidents', 'post');

var json = new JSON();



r.setStringParameter("short_description", current.short_description);

r.setStringParameter("u_affected_user", current.u_affected_user);

r.setStringParameter("location", current.location);

r.setStringParameter("impact", current.impact);

r.setStringParameter("urgency", current.urgency);

r.setStringParameter("description", json.encode(current.description + ''));

r.setStringParameter("work_notes", json.encode(current.work_notes + ''));

r.setStringParameter("u_category", current.u_category);

r.setStringParameter("u_classification_level_3", current.u_classification_level_3);

r.setStringParameter("service_offering", current.service_offering);

r.setStringParameter("cmdb_ci",current.cmdb_ci);

r.setStringParameter("u_requestor", current.u_requestor);

r.setStringParameter("u_preferred_contact_number", current.u_requestor);

//r.setStringParameter("work_notes", current.work_notes.getJournalEntry(-1).toString);

var responser = r.execute();



gs.log("getBody: " + responser.getBody());

gs.log("getStatusCode: " + responser.getStatusCode());

gs.log("getHeaders " + responser.getHeaders());

Notice the json variable on line 2 and the use of json.encode function on lines 9 and 10.   Also notice that I coerced the current.description and current.work_notes into a string.   This is important since json.encode will encode entire objects as a string, not what you want here.

[hetalvadanlal]

Hi Travis

Thank you for your response

I have tried what you suggested.

It works fine now but it adds string """ at the start and end of the phrase

Ex:

TEST1

TEST2

TEST3

Gets converted to

"TEST1

TEST2

TEST3"

Not sure how I can get rid of those things

Thanks again for wonderful suggestion

Regards

Hetal