diacritics-neutralise - "s.replace is not a function" error when string column contains pure integer value

[themightystephen]

I have a DataTable with (ajax) data loaded in one column which normally contains values of type string but sometimes contains integer values. E.g.:

{
  id: 1
  name: "Company A"
  has_access: "1"
},
{
  id: 2
  name: "Company B"
  has_access: "1"
},
{
  id: 1
  name: 727
  has_access: 1
}

In the above, the third company is called 727, which unfortunately is returned as an integer type rather than string in the JSON. diacritics-neutralise hits a snag when it reaches processing this entry and gives an error: s.replace is not a function

I managed to change the back-end which generates the JSON so that it ensures 727 is always a string ("727") - that has been my solution here. However, it may be worth making the plugin more resilient to this situation by updating the removeDiacritics function to cast s to a string to ensure it's never caught off-guard:

function removeDiacritics ( s ) {
  for (var i=0, l=diacriticsMap.length; i<l; i++) {
    s = String(s).replace(diacriticsMap[i].letters, diacriticsMap[i].base);
  }
  return s; 
}

The above worked for me before using the server-side solution mentioned above.

[holtkamp]

The same occurred when using any-number sorting plugin version 1.13.6 and a NULL or integer is handed over by the back-end after inline editing a row:

any-number.js:32 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'replace')
at _anyNumberSort (any-number.js:32:11)
at DataTable.ext.type.order.any-number-asc (any-number.js:39:12)
at jquery.dataTables.min.js?version=1.13.6:4:42937
at Array.sort (<anonymous>)
at ie (jquery.dataTables.min.js?version=1.13.6:4:42765)
at u (jquery.dataTables.min.js?version=1.13.6:4:23709)
at B.<anonymous> (jquery.dataTables.min.js?version=1.13.6:4:55254)
at B.iterator (jquery.dataTables.min.js?version=1.13.6:4:52083)
at B.<anonymous> (jquery.dataTables.min.js?version=1.13.6:4:55209)
at B.draw (jquery.dataTables.min.js?version=1.13.6:4:53566)

The error is caused by this line:

Plugins/sorting/any-number.js

Line 32 in 244f788

a = a.replace(',', '.').match(reg);

Or when an integer is involved:

Uncaught TypeError: a.replace is not a function

Like @themightystephen suggested, this can be circumvented by ensuring every value returned by the backend is a string using a PHP function like this:

    public function serializeTableRowDataArrayToJson(array $tableRowData) : string
    {
        $arrayWithStringValues = array_map(
            static fn (mixed $value) : string => strval($value),
            $tableRowData
        );

        return json_encode($arrayWithStringValues, JSON_HEX_TAG | JSON_HEX_QUOT | JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES | JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR);
    }

I agree that casting to a string in the plugin itself might be a better place to do...

Note that this behaviour did not occur in for example version 1.13.3...

[AllanJard]

The plugin should really just allow for non-string types. If it isn't a string it can't contain a diacritic...! I'll look into that.

[AllanJard]

The plug-in does actually cast to a string already: https://github.com/DataTables/Plugins/blob/master/sorting/src/diacritics-sort.ts#L320 . Could some one link me to a test case showing the issue so I can take a further look into it please?

[holtkamp]

@AllanJard ah, maybe I hijacked an old issue then.

My example was about any-number.js sorting plugin:

Plugins/sorting/any-number.js

Line 39 in 244f788

return _anyNumberSort(a, b, Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY);

[AllanJard]

Thanks for the clarification. Fix committed here: 257a4c7 . Assuming you are happy with the fix, I'll close this issue off.