Flow Variable Issue

[dougconnell]

Flow Variable Issue

I am Having Issues with Input Variables in Flow Actions in San Diego.

1. Anyone seen the same thing? 
2. I have opened Case CS6252272
3. An Update Set illustrating the Problem is attached.

Problem Summary

A stray character with CharCode 65279 is being appended to all Variable Values of type Text which prevents the value being used in SN Queries and other use cases.  I don't know if this stray character is being appended to other variable types such as Reference values.  Possibly.  I am seeing some slightly erratic behavior.

Diagnostic Flow Action

To illustrate the Problem, I created a Flow Action with a Javascript Step. The Upddate Set is attached.

The Flow Action has one input parameter called "My Text Variable" (my_text_variable) which is then used as input to my Step which contains this JavaScript Step.

Javascript

(function execute(inputs, outputs) {
  var messageText = "";
  var myTextVariable1 = inputs.my_text_variable;
  messageText += "\n myTextVariable1 = [" + myTextVariable1 + "]";
  messageText += "\n myTextVariable1.length = [" + myTextVariable1.length + "]";
  // There is a bug. Remove stray char at end of string.
  var x = String.fromCharCode(65279);
  var myTextVariable2 = myTextVariable1.replace(x,"");
  messageText += "\n myTextVariable2 = [" + myTextVariable2 + "]";
  messageText += "\n myTextVariable2.length = [" + myTextVariable2.length + "]";
  outputs.message_text = messageText;
})(inputs, outputs);

Output

I then Click on Test for the flow and enter "Hello" as the value for "My Text Variable" (my_text_variable).
This was my output.

 myTextVariable1 = [Hello]
 myTextVariable1.length = [6]
 myTextVariable2 = [Hello]
 myTextVariable2.length = [5]

[Lisa Holenstein]

Update: this has been solved with Tokyo Patch 2, see the section Notable Fixes for PRB1606387.

[Community Alums]

Hi Lisa,

Rather annoyingly, the ServiceNow instance provided as part of the IntegrationHub Fundamentals course is Tokyo patch 1.

This /ufeff character breaks the Pagination Variables Script when building the the World Glaciers - LatLong Action, using Chrome 119 (latest build). It works in Firefox, but took me a moment to find the cause.

I'm reporting it to the NowLearning team.

[SyaharruddinCSC]

I have the same problem too. However, mine was being appended at the front of the variable. Working using non-Chromium web browser doesn't help at all. My workaround was to remove it using .replace.

Funny enough, I found the problem while working multi-approvals using an article that Lisa Holenstein created.