Error when using Puck.eval in Web Bluetooth

Posted on Sun 11th, June 2017

• #1

ConorONeill

I have Puck.write working fine but Puck.eval is throwing an error on Chrome on Ubuntu.

Same error no matter what command I try, even 1+1.

<button onclick="Puck.eval('1+1;',function(x) { console.log(x); })">Get The Time</button>

This is on 1v92.

Am I missing something obvious? Thanks!

Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token U in JSON at position 0
    at JSON.parse (<anonymous>)
    at puck.js:298
    at Object.connection.cb (puck.js:235)
    at Object.ondata (puck.js:272)
    at Object.emit (puck.js:100)
    at BluetoothRemoteGATTCharacteristic.<anonymous> (puck.js:190)

• #2

Gordon

Does it work if you do Puck.eval('1+1' - without the semicolon? The idea is it's executed as an expression so a semicolon might confuse matters.

Looks like the code was causing an exception, the U is probably the U from Uncaught .... I wonder what the best way of reporting that back to the user of the library would be?
• #3

ConorONeill

Aha that's it, thanks Gordon. Working like a charm now for several different expressions. I missed the lack of a semicolon in the example.
• #4

ConorONeill

Not sure what the best way to report that back to users is.
• #5

AntiCat

I'd recommend to catch the syntax error and output the input that caused the syntax error?
In this case the targets error message.

• #6

ConorONeill

I've hit that problem a few times. e.g. right now one of my Puck.write() calls is working but when I follow it with a Puck.eval(), it throws a JSON error which turns out to be due to trying to parse

Bluetooth.println(JSON.stringify(new Date().toString()))

Still trying to figure out what interaction of write() and eval() is causing that to appear as the response to eval(). Doing two eval() in a row is fine. And if I do write(), eval(), eval(), the second eval() is fine so write() is causing some issue.

<html>
 <head>
 </head>
 <body>
  <script src="https://www.puck-js.com/puck.js"></script>
  <script>
      var d = new Date();
      var n = Math.round(d.getTime()/1000);
      var puckCommand = "setTime(" + n + ")\\n";
      console.log(puckCommand);
  </script>
  <button onclick="Puck.write(puckCommand);">Set The Time</button>
  <button onclick="Puck.eval('new Date().toString()',function(x) { console.log(x); })">Get The Time</button>
   </body>
</html>

• #7

Gordon

The issue is the Puck.write call generates some output on the Puck. Then when eval is called, it receives whatever Puck.write output instead - I guess 'Puck.eval' could prefix the output with something - that would help to differentiate it from the output of write.

One option is to temporarily turn off the console output (echo) for the line you write - try puckCommand = "\x10setTime(" + n + ")\\n" and I imagine that'll fix it (it's just sending char code 16 at the start of the line)
• #8

ConorONeill
What does the char code do? Disable echo?

I'm getting a different error now:
```
Uncaught SyntaxError: Got '\' expected EOF
```
• #9

Gordon

Yes, char code 16 right on the start of a line disables echo for just that line.

Is it possible that you somehow ended up sending the characters \x10 and not the single character code 16? You could try String.fromCharCode(16)+ but I'd have thought the code I posted should work.
• #10

ConorONeill

Still no joy. Same error which is very weird.

• #11

Gordon

Do you have your Web Bluetooth page hosted online somewhere that I could take a look at?

I just went to https://www.espruino.com/try.php?page=Puck.js+Web+Bluetooth&n=0, clicked some buttons to get it connected, opened devtools, and then started typing.

Puck.write('LED1.set();\n');
Puck.write('\x10LED1.reset();\n');
// both work
Puck.write('LED1.set();\n');Puck.eval("BTN.read()",function(x) { console.log(x); })
// fails - as expected
Puck.write('\x10LED1.set();\n');Puck.eval("BTN.read()",function(x) { console.log(x); })
// works fine

• #12

ConorONeill

Hmm. Typing that in the devtools console works for me too. I must be missing something very obvious.

Code is on: https://conorpuckjs.now.sh/web_bluetooth_set_time.html
• #13

ConorONeill

So I can replicate the write/eval error in devtools console when \x10 is excluded. But when I include it, it works, as you predicted. So I'm clueless as to why it's not working in the code on the page.
• #14

Gordon
Is it this bit that's not working?
```
<button onclick="Puck.write('\x10setTime(12345789);\\n')">Set The Time with x10</button>
```
I think it's to do with escaping in HTML, because you're in a string inside a string - note you have to do \\n for newline, not \n - maybe just doing \\x10 would fix it?

... and your puckCommand example wouldn't work, but for the other reason! Try changing \\n to \n in that one!
• #15

ConorONeill

So the bad news is that \x10 or even \\x10 doesn't work (I've tried so many variations around that). The good news is that changing \n to \n in puckCommand solves the overall problem and eval() happily runs now after write(). Thanks for all the help!
• #16

Gordon

In the <button line? The normal \x10 in the puckCommand line itself is totally fine though.

• #17

ConorONeill

The final working code was:

<html>
 <head>
 </head>
 <body>
  <script src="https://www.puck-js.com/puck.js"></script>
  <script>
      var d = new Date();
      var n = Math.round(d.getTime()/1000);
      var puckCommand = String.fromCharCode(16)+"setTime(" + n + ")\n";
  </script>
   <button onclick="Puck.write(puckCommand);">Set The Time</button>
   <button onclick="Puck.eval('new Date().toString()',function(x) { console.log(x); })">Get The Time</button>
   </body>
</html>

I never got \x10 working in the code. As you said, there must be some HTML escaping going on somewhere.

• #18

Gordon

I've now added some queueing functionality to the puck.js file at https://espruino.github.io/js/puck.js

Please could you give it a go? You should now be able to call Puck.write and eval right after each other, and it'll queue the eval until the write has finished.

It'll be a little slower since it waits to receive all of the data from the Puck.write command before executing whatever is next, but I think that's probably worth it. For high speed stuff you can still use Puck.connect.

• #19

ConorONeill

Yup, that worked perfectly. Even with

Puck.write(puckCommand);Puck.eval('new Date().toString()',function(x) { console.log(x); })

Thanks!

• #20

dju010
hello,
I do realize this is an old topic, but I have what appears the same problem.

I am using a RuuviTag as hardware and have setup a test website, which points to the Puck.js library. When I test the code from Post #17 I can send the command and I see in the IDE console the date is printed. However in my Chrome Console, I only receive an empty JSON error.
```
<BLE> Unable to decode "", got SyntaxError: Unexpected end of JSON input
```
Puck.js:313
followed by a "null"

I have that problem with all WebBluetooth examples I can find. Any idea how to solve this?
• #21

Gordon

What computer are you using this on? If it's Windows then Chrome for Windows currently has a bug where Web Bluetooth only works for sending data, not receiving it...
• #22

dju010 in reply to @Gordon
Hello Gordon

Well, yes I am.
Thank you for your info!

However, I can't get this to work on my Android phone (Android 8) and Chrome too.
I changed the get line to an alert statement:
```
<button onclick="Puck.eval('new Date().toString()',function(x) { alert(x); })">Get The Time</button>
```
in order to get the received data displayed.
The alert just presents me we a message "null"
• #23

Gordon

I'm not sure which version of the firmware you have, but maybe try (new Date()).toString() just in case?

Or just E.getTemperature()?
• #24

dju010

Well, now that is working with E.getTemperature()

The command I posted with the date works when I enter it in the IDE directly, but I can't transmit it (yet).
I'm running Epruino 1.94 on a RuuviTag.

Thank you very much. This helped me a lot.

Post a reply
- Bold
- Italics
- Link
- Image
- List
- Quote
- code
- Preview
Formatting Help

Don't worry about formatting, just type in the text and we'll take care of making sense of it. We will auto-convert links, and if you put asterisks around words we will make them bold.

Tips:

Create headers by underlining text with ==== or ----

To *italicise* text put one asterisk each side of the word

To **bold** text put two asterisks each side of the word

Embed images by entering:
![](https://www.google.co.uk/images/srpr/logo4w.png)
That's the hard one: exclamation, square brackets and then the URL to the image in brackets.

* Create lists by starting lines with asterisks

1. Create numbered lists by starting lines with a number and a dot

> Quote text by starting lines with >

Mention another user by @username

For syntax highlighting, surround the code block with three backticks:

```
Your code goes here
```
Just like Github, a blank line must precede a code block.

If you upload more than 5 files we will display all attachments as thumbnails.

For a full reference visit the Markdown syntax.

Error when using Puck.eval in Web Bluetooth

About