CMCD tests failing on Xbox One

[joeyparrish]

Test output on Xbox One:

Edge 18.22000 (Xbox One) CmcdManager Query serialization produces correctly serialized data FAILED
        Error: Expected 'br=52317,bs,cid="xyz",com.test-exists,com.test-hello="world",com.test-testing=1234,com.test-token=undefined,d=6067,mtp=10000,nor="..%2Ftesting%2F3.m4v",nrr="0-99",sid="c936730c-031e-4a73-976f-92bc34039c60"' to be 'br=52317,bs,cid="xyz",com.test-exists,com.test-hello="world",com.test-testing=1234,com.test-token=s,d=6067,mtp=10000,nor="..%2Ftesting%2F3.m4v",nrr="0-99",sid="c936730c-031e-4a73-976f-92bc34039c60"'.
            at <Jasmine>
           at Anonymous function (test/util/cmcd_manager_unit.js:41:7 <- test/util/cmcd_manager_unit.js:37:7)
            at <Jasmine>

It seems that the cause is the code to handle Symbols:

      // Serialize the key/value pair
      const type = typeof value;
      let result;

      if (type === 'string' && key !== 'ot' && key !== 'sf' && key !== 'st') {
        result = `${key}=${JSON.stringify(value)}`;
      } else if (type === 'boolean') {
        result = key;
      } else if (type === 'symbol') {
        result = `${key}=${value.description}`;
      } else {
        result = `${key}=${value}`;
      }

On Xbox One, it seems that description is unimplemented somehow:

const s = Symbol('s');
console.log(s.description);  // prints undefined

While that is clearly a bug in the platform's JavaScript environment, @littlespex, is it necessary or useful to have Symbol support here? I don't understand when someone would use that.

[littlespex]

Symbols are used to define custom CMCD token values. That said, there is currently no way to define custom CMCD fields (that feature is mentioned in the original ticket but not yet implemented). The symbol else if could be removed for now, or a fallback could be added:

result = `${key}=${value.description || value.toString().slice(7, -1)}`;

[avelad]

I created a PR with another solution

[joeyparrish]

What are "custom CMCD token values", and why are Symbols the solution?

[littlespex]

The CMCD spec contains 4 value types: string, number, boolean and token. One example of a token type is the Object Type field. Token values are serialized without quotes.

The spec also allows for custom key/value pairs to sent with each request. The original serialization code this is based off of from used Symbols to represent token values to create a one to one relationship between JS primitives and CMCD values types.

https://cdn.cta.tech/cta/media/media/resources/standards/pdfs/cta-5004-final.pdf