special character sequence ## in token content causes issues | Community
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Jean-François_L
Jean-François_L
Level 1
June 21, 2019
Question

special character sequence ## in token content causes issues

  • June 21, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 3299 views

I'm executing a campaign using the REST API and came across an interesting situation / issue.

When one of the token values passed in contains two hash / pound symbols consecutively "##" the token replacement / template "breaks" and unexpected results occur:

Value passed in: "PUcL#xPJE##0" (it's an auto-generated character sequence for a temporary password that happens to include the # as an option. In this case the random generator put two # together)

The value passed into the token above becomes the following in the e-mail received:

PUcL#xPJE#$VE_Esacape_Comment0

Thanks for any advice you can provide!

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2 replies

Chris_Wilcox
Chris_Wilcox
Level 8
June 21, 2019

A "##" in a token is used to comment out your code in velocity. For example, this code has a couple comments explaining what is happening on the following lines:

##Check is value meets conditions of code
#if !$lead.Variable.contains("Value")
    Output
##Default value defined here
#else
	Default
#end‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

You're having an issue because velocity is interpreting any characters after your double hash as a comment, not a part of the code itself to be executed. 

Jean-François_L
Jean-François_LAuthor
Level 1
June 21, 2019

Thanks Chris - I appreciate that fact and I've seen this documentation.

I believe however it's a problem not to accept the tokens "as-is" when passed in. If a token value contains ## then Velocity should somehow parse the token and escape the ##.

I don't imagine many users would purposely pass in ## in a token and expect it to be used as a comment? I may be wrong.

Just to clarify, my code does not contain ##, the token value that I pass in contains ## and thus should be escaped automatically, imo.

SanfordWhiteman
SanfordWhiteman
Level 10
June 21, 2019

There would be no way for the server to know you didn't mean the reserved character.  That's what escaping literals is all about, in any language.

The escape for hash is ${esc.h}.

Jay_Jiang
Jay_Jiang
Level 10
June 23, 2019

You're going to have to tweak your velocity to accommodate the hashing

or

You can remove # from your password generator if that's an option

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