student_code is an integer in some TASS instances and string in others

[team-hq]

Hi guys,

I found that most TASS instances return "student_code" as string, but the latest instance I'm working on returns it as an int. This one is on tass.cloud and I think the others are on-prem.

params = "{'currentstatus': 'current'}"
method = "getStudentsDetails"
version = "3"

These are 6 digit numbers starting with 1 and the others are also 6 digit numbers but they start with 00.

Let me know if you need more info.

I'll cast it to a string and save, but maybe just letting you know and letting others know as I've spent a considerable amount of time on finding this inconsistency.

Cheers,

M

[scottetass]

Hi,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I suspect it's because the API does not use pre-defined models to let the JSON serialiser know what each field type is, so it probably tries to make a best-case guess of the field type based on the data in each field. The fields starting with 1 can definitely be determined as a number whereas the fields starting with leading zeroes can't be determined as a real number because numbers don't generally start with leading zeroes, so it assumes it's a string.

I'm not sure what can be done about it, I'll speak to the ColdFusion gurus and see if we can improve this in some way.

Thanks, Scott