How to set a context variable with dot in name?

Question

I am trying to add a context data variable (CDV), which has a dot in its name. According to Adobe site this is correct:

s.contextData['myco.rsid'] = 'value'

Unfortunately, after calling s.t() the variable is split into two or more:

Context Variables
myco.:  
rsid: value 
.myco:  

How can I set the variable and prevent splitting it into pieces?

Answer 1

You are setting it properly already. If you are referring to what you see in the request URL, that's how the Adobe library sends it. In your example, "myco" is a namespace, and "rsid" is a variable in that namespace. And you can have other variables in that namespace. For example if you have

s.contextData['myco.rsid1'] = 'value';
s.contextData['myco.rsid2'] = 'value';

You would see in the AA request URL (just showing the relevant part):

c.&myco.&rsid1=value&rsid2=value&.myco&.c

I assume you are asking because you want to more easily parse/qa AA collection request URLs from the browser network tab, extension, or some unit tester? There is no way to force AA to not behave like this when using dot syntax (namespaces) in your variables.

But, there isn't anything particularly special about using namespaces for your contextData variables; it's just there for your own organization if you choose. So if you want all variables to be "top level" and show full names in the request URL, then do not use dot syntax.

If you want to still have some measure of organization/hierarchy, I suggest you instead use an underscore _ :

s.contextData['myco_rsid1'] = 'value';
s.contextData['myco_rsid2'] = 'value';

Which will give you:

c.&myco_rsid1=value&myco_rsid2=value&.c

Side Note: You cannot do full object/dot notation syntax with s.contextData, e.g.

s.contextData = {
    foo:'bar',     // <--- this will properly parse
    myco:{         // this will not properly parse
      rsid:'value' // 
    }              //
};

AA library does not parse this correctly; it just loops through top level properties of contextData when building the request URL. So if you do full object syntax like above, you will end up with:

c.&foo=bar&myco=%5Bobject%20Object%5D&&.c

foo would be okay, but you end up with just myco with "[object Object]" as the recorded value. Why Adobe didn't allow for full object syntax and just JSON.stringify(s.contextData) ? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯