sendLocationEvent() changes types for Map to String? Why

[Hubi]

I have a server App that serves Notifications like this:

Map Notification = [message: "Back Door Open"]

log.debug "type = " + getObjectClassName(Notification) // shows "type = java.util.LinkedHashMap"

sendLocationEvent(name:"NOTIFICATION", value: Notification, data: "Ring", descriptionText: "description you want", isStateChange: true)

I have a client App that subscribes to this and the first line in the event handler I get:

log.debug "type = " + getObjectClassName(evt.value) // shows "type = java.lang.String"

I am expecting to get a Map delivered in the handler just like I sent it.

I must be a bad researcher because I am looking for an explanation and cannot find one. Does someone know what is going on?
Thanks

[bertabcd1234]

I'm not sure this is documented, but a good guess would be that the location object allows only strings for values on any event. (Groovy makes it easy to convert back and forth, though JSON would be a more conveniential intermediate format.)

[Hubi]

Could you provide me a little more detail about "Groovy makes it easy to convert back and forth".
Thanks

[bertabcd1234]

Here is an example, this being for the lightEffects attribute that is really a Map converted to/from JSON. It's just a device event/attribute, but doing this for a location event would be similar.

LightEffects

for a static set of effects: import groovy.json.JsonSlurper import groovy.transform.Field @Field static Map lightEffects = [1:"Fire Place",2:"Storm",3:"Deep Fade",4:"Lite Fade",5:"Police"] def installed() { def le = new groovy.json.JsonBuilder(lightEffects) sendEvent(name:"lightEffects",value:le) } def setEffect(String effect){ def id = lightEffects.find{ it.value == effect } if (id) setEffect(id.key) } def setEffect(id){ def descriptionText def efSelect = lightEffec…

[Hubi]

Bert, I really appreciate the help. It wasn't exactly like the example but it was close enough. I ended up with "def NotificationConverted = new groovy.json.JsonBuilder(Notification).toString()" in the Server and "def NotificationBack = new groovy.json.JsonSlurper().parseText(evt.value)" in the Client. You know this is totally straight forward right? NOT! LOL... thks again