CFFEED: String index out of range: -1

Posted At : May 7, 2008 10:21 AM | Posted By : Randy Johnson
Related Categories: Coldfusion

Today I decided it would be cool to give cffeed a try.

I read over the documentation and created a script to pull a few different feeds based on a database table of feeds.

My first two rss feeds ran without any problem.

The last two feeds threw an error.

Here is the error I am receiving:

String index out of range: -1

Here is the code:

<cftry>
<cffeed
source = "http://feeds.sphinn.com/sphinn" query = "theFeed"
>
<cfcatch>
<cfdump var="#cfcatch#">
</cfcatch>
</cftry>

I updated my CF 8 installation to 8.01 because I thought maybe it was a bug but that didn't seem to help.

Any ideas what could be causing this error?

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Ben Nadel's Gravatar Try getting the value via CFHttp first and the use XmlParse(). That way, we can figure out where the problem exists (the getting or the parseing).

<cfhttp url="http://feeds.sphinn.com/sphinn"; action="get" result="objGet" />

<cfdump var="#objGet#" />

<cfset xmlData = XmlParse( Trim( objGet.FileContent ) ) />

<cfdump var="#xmlData#" />

Try that and see iwhere the error happens. Might help.
# Posted By Ben Nadel | 5/7/08 11:00 AM
Randy Johnson's Gravatar I set that up and ran the page. It ran without any problems. No errors on the get or the parse. I am baffled by it, the only thing that is remotely kind of weird is the ~ in the urls, but that's proper url syntax and the XMLParse works just fine.
# Posted By Randy Johnson | 5/7/08 11:27 AM
Raymond Camden's Gravatar I ran Ben's code on a 801 server (after fixing his typos, dude, do you even KNOW CF?!!?!!!? (kidding ;)), and it worked fine for me. Randy - are you sure your update to 801 was complete?
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 5/7/08 11:31 AM
Raymond Camden's Gravatar Woah! I stand corrected. In my quick test I used name= for cffeed, which gives you a struct. It worked. I tried query and it gave the error you described. So this is definitely a bug. Be sure to report it.

http://www.adobe.com/go/wish
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 5/7/08 11:32 AM
Ben Nadel's Gravatar I think the typos keep you on your toes :)
# Posted By Ben Nadel | 5/7/08 11:33 AM
Raymond Camden's Gravatar So just so it's clear, you can use the struct version for now in case this is a pressing business need for ya.

CFFEED... I'm happy Adobe added it, but boy has it been flakey.
# Posted By Raymond Camden | 5/7/08 11:36 AM
Randy Johnson's Gravatar Ben & Ray,

Thanks for your help. I will be sure to report the bug and use a struct for now.
# Posted By Randy Johnson | 5/7/08 11:37 AM
Randy Johnson's Gravatar I have reported this bug to Adobe.
# Posted By Randy Johnson | 5/7/08 11:42 AM
Theo Rushin Jr's Gravatar There is nothing wrong with your code. Through a process of trial and error I found that it is a bug in CF8. The CFFEED tage chokes on the <dc:creator /> tag.
If you balance the tag (I know you cant because it's not your feed) like so; <dc:creator>Test</dc:creator> or remove it then it works properly. I don't know if that's the only tag it chokes on or not.

Solution? Use the name Attribute and then create your Query from the resulting structure.
# Posted By Theo Rushin Jr | 5/7/08 12:08 PM
Hemant's Gravatar We will look into this issue.

Thanks,
Hemant
Adobe ColdFusion Team
# Posted By Hemant | 5/8/08 6:02 AM
Jayesh<BR>Adobe CF Team's Gravatar Confirming this problem. Have logged a bug for this. As somebody already suggested here Null values for the <dc:creator/> tag is the culprit. It's also same for other DC tags.
# Posted By Jayesh<BR>Adobe CF Team | 5/12/08 3:05 AM
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