Error in Make's UI when using strings in formulas

Questions
1

:bullseye: What is your goal?

I want to replace multiple commas in a string using the replace() function.

:thinking: What is the problem & what have you tried?

The replace() function in itself works perfectly fine! However, Make’s UI is completely messed up which lead me to working on one formula (with a lot of nested functions) for hours! Let me explain, by looking only at the replace() function:

{{replace(xyz; ","; "")}}

When copying my code, everything looks fine, since the syntax is correct. However, when I use the Make UI to create the formula, I have to leave out the quotations marks (“”) around the comma or otherwise the function won’t work (see screenshot 1).
Ok, fair. Now you’d think, that this means that Make automatically encapsulates all arguments of the replace() function into quotation marks. Therefore, if you want to get rid of the comma in your string, you simply leave the last argument empty.
WRONG! You actually have to type in the quotation marks into the last argument of the Make UI or the formula won’t work as it creates something like this {{replace("xyz"; ","; )}}! So, basically it leaves out the quotation marks in the last argument and therefore you have to add them there.

What bugs me most about this is, that Make AUTOMATICALLY removed the empty quotation marks for me (that I manually added!), when if I later on put the replace() function into a different function and then saved the module. So basically, once you get the replace function to work with this weird behaviour, you can start debugging your nested formulas only to figure out that Make deleted the quotation marks and that this was the issue - not your wrong formula logic, but Make somehow doing what it wants.

Can we please get this fixed?

:camera_with_flash: Screenshots (scenario flow, module settings, errors)

1.png
1.png908Ă—856 30.9 KB

3

Hey there,

You need {{emptystring}} as the argument to delete something using the replace function. You can’t just leave the argument empty.

4

Hi Stoyan, thanks for your hint. Yes, this would definitely be an option. But the empty quotation marks “" also work. The biggest issue I’m having is, that Make simply deletes these empty quotation marks as soon as I nest the replace() function in a different function and save the module. So it I basically still see the quotation marks, then I click on Save and even then I still see them. Then I close the module and re-open it and the quotation marks are gone. If I afterwards add them again, they stay in there, as long as I don’t edit the function again. This is absolutely a UI issue. It should either not allow me to use empty quotation marks or it should show me that the quotation marks have been removed after saving. But removing them after the module has been closed is simply bad UI design.