Script not correctly parsing string containing "\r"

[Mike Hashemi]

I am running a script (background script currently, but it will be in an ETL later). My goal is to accept a username in any of the formats:

• username@domain.com
• domain\username
• username

I will convert the second two, to "username@domain.com" and do a query against sys_user, for that value. My problem is that I sometimes the username is something like "domain\rsmith". When I run the script, after adjusting the username value, I am left with "smith@domain.com" because SN is interpreting "\r" as a carriage return character. I have worked around the issue for \r but I could have the same problem with other regular expression characters (e.g. \n) and I don't really want to try to code for every possibility.

Is there an OOB way to make SN ignore "\r" and the like?

Here is the script I have been testing:

var input = 'domain\nsmith';

if (input.indexOf('\\') == -1) {
    gs.info('input contains a backslash');

    if (input.contains('\r')) {
        input = input.replace('domain\r', 'r');
    } else {
        input = input.replace('domain', '');
    }

    gs.info('Replaced domain: {0}', input);

    var backslashIndex = input.indexOf('\\');
    if (backslashIndex !== -1) {
        input = input.substring(backslashIndex + 1);
        gs.info('removed domain: {0}', input);
    } else {
        gs.info('domain not in username');
    }

    if (!input.includes('@domain.com')) {
        input += '@domain.com';
        gs.info('added mail domain. input is now: {0}', input);
    }

    var user = new GlideRecord('sys_user');
    user.addQuery('user_name', input);
    user.addQuery('active', 'true');
    user.query();

    var count = 0;
    var firstSysId;
    while (user.next()) {
        if (count === 0) {
            firstSysId = user.sys_id;
        }
        count++;
    }

    gs.info('returning user: {0}', firstSysId);
} else {
    gs.info('no slash');
}

Thanks.

[Mike Hashemi]

I see. You are asking what the string in the SCCM SQL table looks like, what SN is actually receiving. I will have to look into that.

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@Mike Hashemi 

try this

The escapeSpecialChars function is used to escape special characters like \r, \n, \t, \f, \v, and \\.

var input = 'domain\\nsmith';

// Function to escape special characters
function escapeSpecialChars(str) {
    return str.replace(/[\r\n\t\f\v\\]/g, function (char) {
        return '\\' + char.charCodeAt(0).toString(16);
    });
}

// Escape special characters in the input
input = escapeSpecialChars(input);

if (input.indexOf('\\') !== -1) {
    gs.info('input contains a backslash');

    input = input.replace(/domain\\[a-zA-Z0-9]+/, '');
    gs.info('Replaced domain: {0}', input);

    var backslashIndex = input.indexOf('\\');
    if (backslashIndex !== -1) {
        input = input.substring(backslashIndex + 1);
        gs.info('removed domain: {0}', input);
    } else {
        gs.info('domain not in username');
    }

    if (!input.includes('@domain.com')) {
        input += '@domain.com';
        gs.info('added mail domain. input is now: {0}', input);
    }

    var user = new GlideRecord('sys_user');
    user.addQuery('user_name', input);
    user.addQuery('active', 'true');
    user.query();

    var count = 0;
    var firstSysId;
    while (user.next()) {
        if (count == 0) {
            firstSysId = user.sys_id;
        }
        count++;
    }

    gs.info('returning user: {0}', firstSysId);
} else {
    gs.info('no slash');
}

If my response helped please mark it correct and close the thread so that it benefits future readers.

[Mike Hashemi]

This script throws the error:

Javascript compiler exception: missing formal parameter (null.null.script; line 5) in:
var input = 'domain\nsmith';

When I run it. Also, remember that the username (for example) is "domain\nsmith" not "domain\\nsmith".

[MikeWoolsey]

FWIW, the extra backslash is important because the backslash is an escape character. On a line of code, if you want to include a backslash, y'gotta include a double-backslash. It's just the way the source code in Javascript works. You can print out the string immediately using gs.info() and you'll see, Javascript only added one backslash.

If something returns a double backslash or returns [CR] or [LF], that's ... a bigger problem I admit.

[MikeWoolsey]

FWIW, when you're out of this for a bit, a good intro to the crazy world of escape characters:

https://codedamn.com/news/javascript/how-to-escape-a-string-in-javascript