OK so maybe life saving is a little stretch but in this article I will illustrate an occurrence of where using type of() helped solve a real world problem.

The Problem

I wanted to display a data source within a repeat control – relatively simple situation I guess but my brain was asleep that particular morning. I wanted to display the repeat control value within a computed text control……seemed simple

	<xp:this.data>
		<xp:dominoView var="viewSortOrder" viewName="vwSortOrder"></xp:dominoView>
	</xp:this.data>
<xp:repeat var="repeatSortOrder" id="repeat1" value="#{viewSortOrder}" disableOutputTag="true">
	<xp:text tagName="li" escape="false" disableTheme="true">
		<xp:this.value><![CDATA[#{javascript:var temp=""
		temp=temp+repeatSortOrder.title //here is the repeat
		.......
	</xp:text>
</xp:repeat>

Unfortunately this created an error 500 – one of the most useless errors known to XPages but I knew something was wrong…but what?

The answer

Then to my rescue comes “Super TroyReimer” who is of course one of the smartest people I know and he says “oo I dunno let’s find out”

“Why don’t we start by finding the typeof for the repeatSortOrder”?

“errrrrr ok *shaking head and humoring MrSmartGuy*”

so I ran a quick print to the screen and look what came back?

println(typeof(repeatSortOrder))

Oh well DUH Marky……

The repeat control in this context is running a notesViewNavigator in the Java code (I knew that) and therefore in the computed context it is returning a notesview entry every time the repeat cycles….

So in that case the solution is not repeatSortOrder.title is it repeatSortOrder.getColumnValue(‘title’)

	<xp:this.data>
		<xp:dominoView var="viewSortOrder" viewName="vwSortOrder"></xp:dominoView>
	</xp:this.data>
<xp:repeat var="repeatSortOrder" id="repeat1" value="#{viewSortOrder}" disableOutputTag="true">
	<xp:text tagName="li" escape="false" disableTheme="true">
		<xp:this.value><![CDATA[#{javascript:var temp=""
		temp=temp+repeatSortOrder.getColumnValue('title') //here is the repeat
		.......
	</xp:text>
</xp:repeat>

and that works just fine

Conclusion

Troy Reimer is a very smart person

We all have brain farts and I hope you are as lucky to work with some really smart people like I am

typeof() is a very smart way of figuring out why your object is not what you think it is in SSJS