Cli: ERROR: Invalid character (�) in string

[e02d96ec16]

Summary

Failure to retrieve valid metadata, if it contains characters deemed invalid by the XML parser.

Steps To Reproduce:

1. Create a community
   
   
   
   1. Name: 😂
   
   
2. sfdx force:source:pull -f

Expected result

Retrieved the metadata for this in /sites

Actual result

Retrieval fails with:

ERROR: Invalid character (�) in string: 😂 Profile at index 0.

Additional information

Error: Invalid character (�) in string: 😂 Profile at index 0
    at XMLStringifier.module.exports.XMLStringifier.assertLegalChar («···»\node_modules\sfdx-cli\node_modules\salesforce-alm\node_modules\xmlbuilder\lib\XMLStringifier.js:149:15)
⁞

This is related to https://github.com/oozcitak/xmlbuilder-js/issues/154 which got adopted in https://github.com/Leonidas-from-XIV/node-xml2js/pull/395 therefore salesforce-alm would just need to bump its xml2js dependency (please).

SFDX CLI Version:
sfdx-cli/6.53.0 (windows-x64) node-v11.10.0

SFDX plugin Version:
salesforcedx 45.2.0 (core)

OS and version:

Caption        : Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
OSArchitecture : 64-bit
Version        : 10.0.17134
UBR            : 590
ReleaseId      : 1803

[dcarroll]

You are not seriously trying to name a community with an emoji are you? I don't think you are, so, if you can represent the name differently that would help.

[clairebianchi]

@e02d96ec16 are you looking for a better error message?

[e02d96ec16]

The point is sfdx does not support something that Salesforce does (ie emojis (possibly other unicode too?) in Community Name).

I appreciate this is an edge case, in which case if it's not to be supported (now), I would hope for it to at least be officially documented as a Known Issue.

Also, I apologise if this sounded like I was seeking for help. I'm not (I already fixed it locally by applying what I explained in Additional Information); I was just trying to share my findings, hoping to improve sfdx.

[clairebianchi]

@e02d96ec16, thank you, that totally makes sense. I will get a known issue created.