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Matt_Stone2
Level 9
October 23, 2014
Solved

Using lead tokens in javascript causing errors

  • October 23, 2014
  • 14 replies
  • 3041 views
I'm trying to set javascript variables using lead tokens, but it looks like the tokens spit out html entity versions (e.g. instead of "Matt" it spits out "Matt"), which cause all sorts of problems with the script.

Has anyone encountered this before?
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Best answer by Matt_Stone2
In case anyone finds this thread, I wanted to share the results of my discussion with support:

After being escalated to a higher-tier of support, I was informed that "...engineering was able to respond and let me know that this is unfortunately the intended behavior at this time. The value that is returned is due to us performing an HTML escape on tokens so those are the escape characters (ascii)."

Despite this, you can decode the characters to achieve the desired results with something like this:

var test = "{{lead.First Name}}";  
var decoded = $('<textarea/>').html(test).text();


And then you'll be left with the "decoded" variable that outputs properly.

14 replies

Kenny_Elkington
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
October 23, 2014
Hey Matt,

What does the script look like in your page html?
Matt_Stone2
Level 9
October 23, 2014
<script type="text/javascript">
$( document ).ready() {
  var testEmail = "{{lead.First Name}}";  
  console.log("User ID: " + testEmail);
}
</script> 


Ignore the fact that the variable is called testEmail... originally I was trying to pass the lead's email and switched it to first name when I ran into trouble.

When the page loads, this is what you see in the source:
<script type="text/javascript">
$( document ).ready() {
  var testEmail = "&#77;&#97;&#116;&#116;";  
  console.log("User ID: " + testEmail);
}
</script>

Also might be worth noting that in the above case, I'm using an HTML element via the landing page builder. However, I have also tried adding this code directly to the landing page template and had the same result.
Matt_Stone2
Level 9
October 27, 2014
Bump -- any ideas?
Kenny_Elkington
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
October 27, 2014
Hey Matt,

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner.  This doesn't look right, can you log a support case with the info which you've provided here and an example lead and landing page where you've seen this occurring?
Matt_Stone2
Matt_Stone2AuthorAccepted solution
Level 9
October 30, 2014
In case anyone finds this thread, I wanted to share the results of my discussion with support:

After being escalated to a higher-tier of support, I was informed that "...engineering was able to respond and let me know that this is unfortunately the intended behavior at this time. The value that is returned is due to us performing an HTML escape on tokens so those are the escape characters (ascii)."

Despite this, you can decode the characters to achieve the desired results with something like this:

var test = "{{lead.First Name}}";  
var decoded = $('<textarea/>').html(test).text();


And then you'll be left with the "decoded" variable that outputs properly.
March 30, 2015

Hey Matt >

Does this actually work for you? I'm trying to use this work around, but I'm not getting anything different from what I had before. 

Adam

Kenny_Elkington
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
March 30, 2015
Hey Adam,

Can you show us an example of your code and the input/output?
March 30, 2015



Here's an example of what I'm trying to pass to AdRoll. I have two different versions, one like Matt said, and a second to try a different way!



Both give me the same EscapeCharacters described as the "intended behavior". 

 

Kenny_Elkington
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
March 30, 2015
Hey Adam,

You need to use the output from the 'decoded' variable to get the plaintext version for script use.  You could also just set your object properties by using the the result directly like this:
<script>
var myobj = {
"prop1": $('<textarea/>').html({{lead.token}}).text(),
"prop2": $('<textarea/>').html({{my.token}}).text()
};
Matt_Stone2
Level 9
March 30, 2015
Hi Adam -- did Kenny's answer work for you? If not, you could try decoding each token individually up top, then using the decoded versions however you see fit.

So just above your code you'd have:

var product = "{{lead.primary-product}}";
var decodedProduct = $('<textarea/>').html(product).text();

var campaign = "{{lead.utm_campaign}}";
var decodedCampaign = $('<textarea/>').html(campaign).text();

var whatever = "{{lead.whateverToken}}";
var decodedWhatever = $('<textarea/>').html(whatever).text();

And then just use the decoded ones from then on. You can also use this setup to just output them individually as a test first.