Name is scrambled when updating company with special character in its name

[intercom]

Name is scrambled when updating company with special character in its name

[bobjflong]

Hi @liorhar,

We escape identity attributes like name on output in the API, but it looks like we weren't unescaping HTML input on the /companies endpoint. We are doing this now so this issue shouldn't compound itself. Will you be able to fix up your data? Perhaps by searching for companies with HTML entities in their name?

[liorhar]

I'm not sure I understand your response. Are you saying that the read endpoint will now return the company name escaped, so when I update the company it should all just work?
My data is sanitized, I never send HTML elements in the name

[liorhar]

@bobjflong

[bobjflong]

We escape name in the API, so if your company name was Foo & Bar, it would be rendered as Foo & Bar in the API response.

So if you read that name in the intercom-java client, and submitted an update, it would be stored as Foo & Bar, and then re-rendered as Foo & Bar.

Now, after the bug fix if you submit Foo & Bar, it will stay stored as Foo & Bar, and be rendered as Foo & Bar. Does that make sense?

[liorhar]

Yes, it does.
So is the bug fixed already on your end?
Do I have to encode the name before updating the company using the java client or does it do it automatically?

[bobjflong]

The bug is fixed on our end. You can either submit Foo & Bar or Foo & Bar and it will be stored as Foo & Barin the datastore.

[liorhar]

I'm sorry but I'm still getting the following error when updating companies with special characters:
updating Banes & Spot, message: custom_attributes invalid, length too long: name

[bobjflong]

Is it possible that you have a really long custom attribute called name? Could you print out the Company object you are trying to save?

[liorhar]

It is possible, see the screenshot attached to the issue. But that's only because your endpoint has expanded a single ampersand into dozens of them.
I set the new name which is short Banes & Spot yet it fails to update probably cause of the previous value.

[bobjflong]

But that's a custom_attribute? custom_attributes are key/value pairs that you can set arbitrarily. Are you using that alongside a normal name field?

[liorhar]

yes, I'm using custom attributes but those are either boolean or numeric so their value can't be long. This is the code snippet:

company.setName(companyStats.name)
        company.addCustomAttribute(CustomAttribute.newBooleanAttribute("hasDemoData", companyStats.hasDemoData))
        company.addCustomAttribute(CustomAttribute.newIntegerAttribute("filledFinancialInfo", companyStats.hasSignificantData))
        company.addCustomAttribute(CustomAttribute.newIntegerAttribute("employees", companyStats.numberOfEmployees))
        company.addCustomAttribute(CustomAttribute.newIntegerAttribute("size", companyStats.size))
        company.addCustomAttribute(CustomAttribute.newDoubleAttribute("averageAge", companyStats.averageAge))
        company.setRemoteCreatedAt(companyStats.createdAt.atZone(ZoneOffset.UTC).toEpochSecond)
        if (companyStats.numberOfDaysLeftToTrial.isDefined) company.addCustomAttribute(CustomAttribute.newIntegerAttribute("numberOfDaysLeftToTrial", companyStats.numberOfDaysLeftToTrial.get))
        Company.update(company)
        ```

[bobjflong]

OK - could you give me some information to track down the failing request. Do you have an app_id, or better yet a request_id from the failed call?

[liorhar]

can we move this discussion to a private channel?

[bobjflong]

Yep, feel free to get in touch through the Intercom widget (ask for bob)