I have a really strange one today. I use 8 char alpha-numeric strings for customerid in one of my apps. Been doing this for YEARS. today, cf2016 on windows, the strangest error happened, and it only (so far) has happened to this one customerid. The customerid is 304143e8, but when it comes back from the function below, it converts to 30414300000000. Its a pretty simple function for a pretty simple search and it was probably written 7+ years ago. (sorry, hit enter too soon) - Any ideas why it would only be replacing the last 2 chars with 8 0's?

<cffunction name="hotsearch" access="remote" returntype="array">
		<cfargument name="crit" type="string" required="yes">
		<cfset var rs=structnew()>
		<cfset var ra = arraynew(1)>
		<cfset ra[1]="NOT FOUND">
		  <cfquery name="getinfo" datasource="#variables.dsn#" maxrows="50">
			select cust_id,fname,lname,mycompany,company,webmail
			from vwSearchCustomer
			where 
				(webmail like <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" value="%#arguments.crit#%">
				or lname like <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" value="%#arguments.crit#%">
				or mycompany like <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" value="%#arguments.crit#%">
				or company like <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" value="%#arguments.crit#%">
				)
			group by 1
			order by lname,fname,mycompany
			</cfquery>
			<cfif getinfo.recordcount gt 0><cfset ra[1]="OK"></cfif>
			<cfoutput query="getInfo">
				<cfset rs=structnew()>
				<cfset rs.PERSON=getInfo.cust_id>
				<cfset rs.PERSONNAME=getinfo.fname&" "&getinfo.lname>
				<cfif len(trim(getinfo.mycompany)) eq 0>
					<cfset rs.COMPANY=getinfo.company>
				<cfelse>
					<cfset rs.COMPANY=getinfo.mycompany>
				</cfif>
				
				<cfset rs.E=lcase(getinfo.webmail)>
				<cfset arrayappend(ra,rs)>
			</cfoutput>
		<cfreturn ra>
	</cffunction>

clearly treating the e as an exponent

Agreed, but straight out of the DB varchar field?

if you dump right after the query, it's a string?

one sec

you can always heavy hand it by javacast'ing it to a string, but unclear if cf will do whatever it wants anyway after that

well, it's coming out of the query and the array just fine..

you mean in the dump?

yep

how are you serializing the return value

its a remote cfc call; straight out of the box

well, it seems to be inferring that it's an exponent flag, and if it's all under the hood stuff done by cf you may just have to proactively bork it to force as string. something like

<cfset rs.PERSON = getinfo.cust_id & " ">

here is a screenshot of the firefox console

you need to somehow get that value quoted

any ideas on how to do that? And dev is Apache, prod is IIS, same on both.

i think you may have to NOT rely on the built in returnformat and do the serialization yourself and return that string of json

gawd, I think I would rather scrub the customerids and adjust my alphanum creation routine.

to exclude e from the alphas? might be a decent idea. if the first char as alpha it would probably solve it as well

yeah, right now I am using a modded hex routine to generate the alphanums (from like 15+ years ago) Guess I'll need a new alphnum generator

If upgrading to a newer version of ColdFusion is an option, I believe a lot of the lingering JSON serialization problems were corrected in CF2018+. Otherwise, there are a few alternative JSON Serializers out there that you can wire up. I believe there's an Application.cfc way to define an alternative JSON Serializer. Ben Nadel's custom one is one of the best I've seen: https://github.com/bennadel/JsonSerializer.cfc

ben always has good code, but i'd wager that his computer buzzes and flashes a red light if his typing goes beyond 80 characters wide, like playing Operation

Here's one way to implement that custom serializer: https://www.raymondcamden.com/2013/09/04/Implementing-custom-JSON-serialization-for-your-CFCs/

@cfvonner that will save me from having to change all the e-number ids, thanks!