During the meeting, the State Changers addressed a challenge Brian was facing with setting up a search endpoint that takes in single search strings and can search through both text and date-based fields in his database using Xano. Brian encountered an error wherein his filter failed when a date couldn't be parsed correctly. They considered implementing a try-catch block, but this introduced more errors.
Several strategies to resolve this issue were proposed. One solution was to create different versions of 'query all records,' one for date-based search and one for name-based search. This way, the system wouldn't attempt to parse a date if it gets an invalid input. Yet, the State Changers identified that despite this implementation, one or both variables might fail to be created, causing an error. Debugging strategies were discussed, notably the use of debug log statements and the run/debug functions in Xano, trying to pinpoint where exactly the errors were coming from. When continuous errors made debug mode disappear, they considered parsing the user input through a Regex function to identify date values prior to passing it to timestamp. Though this strategy is seen as a workaround, it could limit the occurrence of the existing error. The State Changers agreed that Brian will experiment with the regex and share findings later. Additionally, the meeting also highlighted some functional improvements necessary for Xano's debugging mechanisms. They noticed that the current modes either disappear after multiple errors or fail to provide valuable insight about issues. They agreed to report these challenges to the appropriate team for resolution.
(Source: Xano Office Hours with Ray Deck 9/19/2023 )
