loadStrings String Addition/Concatenation in Filepath

[Sunomikey]

Nature of issue?

• Found a bug

Details about the bug:

loadStrings() won't load anything past a direct file path.

What I can do:
loadStrings('test.txt')

OR
x = 'testFolder/test.txt';
loadStrings(x);

What I can't do:
ext = '.txt';
loadStrings('test'+ext');

OR
i = "1";
loadStrings('test'+i+'.txt');

• Web browser and version: Chrome p5 Web Editor 72.0.3626.109 (Official Build) (64-bit)
• Operating System: Windows
• Steps to reproduce this bug:

1. Have file called "test.txt"

2:

function preload(){
	let ext = ".txt"
	txt = loadStrings("test"+ext);
}

It won't ever leave the preload as it can't find the file. Is there a variable type it's looking for?

[catarak]

thanks for reporting! i'm not able to reproduce this, for me it is working, see https://editor.p5js.org/cassie/sketches/tk22ndoWs

[Sunomikey]

Hi @catarak!

That was working for me as well. My problem came with adding strings together to make a filepath.

Modifying your code would be:

let txt;
let fileName = 'test';

function preload() {
	txt = loadStrings(fileName+'.txt'); 
}

function setup() {
  createCanvas(400, 400);
  print(txt);
}

function draw() {
  background(220);
}

[meiamsome]

This is the same underlying issue as #813 I believe, that you can't refer to local files properly. #771 #674 also seem at least partially related. All of these cases are referring to local files in the code that aren't being served up correctly.

For example, in @catarak 's sketch above the file at https://editor.p5js.org/cassie/sketches/tk22ndoWs/test.txt returns a 404 instead of the correct contents? Do we expect that to return the text content like it returns for images?

[catarak]

ahh sorry! did not read closely enough 😸

and @meiamsome, yes, you're right. that url should return the text content like it does for images.

[Sunomikey]

Thanks @meiamsome for linking the other issues. The definition of "When the file names are generated programmatically, rather than just a string inline, it loads the files in a different way." in 674 would be a good way to describe this.

Good to know I'm not crazy and that the example code "should" work.

Thanks for the help everyone!

[meiamsome]

For anyone looking to work on this, I believe the issue is in this function:

p5.js-web-editor/server/controllers/project.controller.js

Lines 151 to 182 in e75c98b

	export function getProjectAsset(req, res) {
	Project.findById(req.params.project_id)
	.populate('user', 'username')
	.exec((err, project) => { // eslint-disable-line
	if (err) {
	return res.status(404).send({ message: 'Project with that id does not exist' });
	}
	if (!project) {
	return res.status(404).send({ message: 'Project with that id does not exist' });
	}
	let assetURL = null;
	const seekPath = req.params[0]; // req.params.asset_path;
	const seekPathSplit = seekPath.split('/');
	const seekFilename = seekPathSplit[seekPathSplit.length - 1];
	project.files.forEach((file) => {
	if (file.name === seekFilename) {
	assetURL = file.url;
	}
	});
	if (!assetURL) {
	return res.status(404).send({ message: 'Asset does not exist' });
	}
	request({ method: 'GET', url: assetURL, encoding: null }, (innerErr, response, body) => {
	if (innerErr) {
	return res.status(404).send({ message: 'Asset does not exist' });
	}
	return res.send(body);
	});
	});
	}

Specifically, it does not account for the case where file.content is used instead of file.url. I'll work on a fix for this in the next few days if someone else hasn't picked it up before then.

@Sunomikey Yes, I can see how this behaviour can be confusing!