ResultProvider.result() sometimes returns a text node as a Buffer

[fgeorges]

In some circumstances, ResultProvider.result() returns a Buffer object for a text node. This does not seem to be documented, and it is not clear how to handle them (e.g. which encoding to use.)

Neither ResultProvider.result() nor DatabaseClient.eval() documents this.

In order to replicate this, create 2 text documents in a database:

• /test.txt, with the following content: Hello, world!
• /hello.xqy, with the following content: 'Hello, world!'

If you execute the following script:

"use strict";

const ml = require('marklogic');

async function main(client)
{
    const res = client.eval(`cts.doc('/hello.xqy')`);
    console.dir(await res.result());
    client.release();
}

main(ml.createDatabaseClient({
    host:     'localhost',
    user:     'admin',
    password: 'admin',
    port:     8000,
    authType: 'DIGEST',
    database: 'Documents',
}));

The output is the following:

[
  {
    format: 'text',
    datatype: 'node()',
    value: Buffer(16) [Uint8Array] [
       39,  72, 101, 108, 108,
      111,  44,  32, 119, 111,
      114, 108, 100,  33,  39,
       10
    ]
  }
]

Is this intentional? Is there a switch to enable/disable this behaviour? How are we supposed to deal with it? (using .toString()?, with which encoding?)

[fgeorges]

Adding some variations as a comment, in order to keep the main description shorter.

If you change the code to client.eval(`cts.doc('/test.txt')`), you get the following result:

[ { format: 'text', datatype: 'node()', value: 'Hello, world!' } ]

This: client.eval(`[cts.doc('/test.txt'), cts.doc('/hello.xqy')]`), gives:

[
  {
    format: 'json',
    datatype: 'node()',
    value: [ 'Hello, world!', "'Hello, world!'\n" ]
  }
]

And finally this one: client.eval(`Sequence.from([cts.doc('/test.txt'), cts.doc('/hello.xqy')])`) gives you this:

[
  { format: 'text', datatype: 'node()', value: 'Hello, world!' },
  {
    format: 'text',
    datatype: 'node()',
    value: Buffer(16) [Uint8Array] [
       39,  72, 101, 108, 108,
      111,  44,  32, 119, 111,
      114, 108, 100,  33,  39,
       10
    ]
  }
]

[anu3990]

@fgeorges The fix for this issue will be included in the next release. Thanks.!

[fgeorges]

Thank you, @anu3990 ! I will test it once it's released.