Adobe LiveCycle Designer Tip #9 - The JavaScript console and string literals

One of the little mysteries with working Acrobat JavaScript is how the JavaScript console handles string literals.

If you open Acrobat and then the JavaScript console, (using Ctrl-J) and type

'abc'.length  .. we get a response of 3

and

“abc”.length  .. also gives a response of 3

But if we are using the JavaScript console when performing a PDF Preview from LiveCycle Designer then

'abc'.length  .. still gives us 3

but

“abc”.length  .. returns undefined

Even worse

'a"b"c'.length .. also returns undefined, (that is a double quote within single quotes)

So it seems we can’t use double quotes at all, but we can you just need to escape them (even though JavaScript should not require us to), so

'a\"b\"c'.length .. returns 5

This doesn’t cause problems daily but every now and then … maybe if I’m having trouble with a SOM expression involving a predicate, say something like

Content.dataNode.resolveNode('$.Location.[Level == "Lead"]')