Translator can't substitute empty strings

[MikeBishop]

Platform: Raspberry Pi 4

Node Version: 10.23.0

MagicMirror Version: 2.13.0

Description: In translator.js, the code checks whether a variable is present with the following code:

return variables[varName] || "{" + varName + "}";

However, when the content of the variable is an empty string, this erroneously substitutes {varName} back in.

Steps to Reproduce: Call this.translate("something with {VAR}", {VAR: ""})

Expected Results: If the variable is present with the empty string, the empty string should be substituted. This could be achieved by using return varName in variables ? variables[varName] : "{" + varName + "}"; instead.

Actual Results: Variable is not subsituted

[rejas]

Thanks for the report. Would you like to submit a PR for this issue?

[MichMich]

Could you give an example when this would be usefull?

[MikeBishop]

I initially used a substitution that contains "{HOURS}{LISTSEP}{MINUTES}", where each element is an empty string if that value is zero, and LISTSEP is ", " if both are non-zero but "" if only one is non-zero. (If both are zero, we won't reach this code.)

There are other ways to build it, of course -- you can insert the string " " and let HTML collapse the whitespace, you can pick from multiple possible strings for the different possible combinations, etc. But more generally, it's simply unexpected behavior that a variable that's present isn't substituted, no matter its value.

[MichMich]

Makes sense. Feel free to send a PR.

[rejas]

This issue can be closed I guess?