Set Hub Variable > 255 characters from an App

arnb · August 1, 2022, 6:51pm

Attempting to set a Hub Variable with a connector > 225 chracters from an app, but keep getting an error that the variable is > 255 characters, however when initially setting or updating the variable from settings: HubVariables, it accepts more than 255 characters. Note: needed the connector to select it in the app.

Is there some way to do this?

Code I've tried

hubVariable.setVariable(workCodes)
setGlobalVar(${hubVariable}, ${workCodes})

Input field
input "hubVariable", "capability.variable", title: "Hub Variable used to store code cache", required: true, multiple: false

bravenel · August 1, 2022, 6:58pm

There's a limit of 255 characters for a String variable. You probably should use a local file instead.

arnb · August 1, 2022, 7:00pm

Is there any documentation or an example of doing that? I will also need to access/read the information from a driver

bravenel · August 1, 2022, 7:18pm

This isn't possible, and there are not available methods (hence no documentation). You can access a local file from RM. I guess RM could call some method in a driver to pass a long string to it.

thebearmay · August 1, 2022, 7:32pm

If all you need are text files, did this mainly as a demonstration:

github.com

thebearmay/hubitat/blob/main/fileMgr.groovy

/*
 * File Manager Device
 *
 *  Licensed Virtual the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except
 *  in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed
 *  on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
 *  for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
 *
 *  Change History:
 *
 *    Date         Who           What
 *    ----         ---           ----
 *    21Mar2022    thebearmay    take the text file methods and place them into a simple to use device driver
 *    22Mar2022    thebearmay    add listFiles command
 *    23Mar2022    thebearmay    add a temporary fileContent attribute, copyFile and fileTrimTop commands
 *    25Mar2022    thebearmay    add callback option for non-child application usage (input( "x", "capability.*"...))

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arnb · August 1, 2022, 8:03pm

Thank you for posting this. I looked at it earlier and although it would definitely work, I was concerned the login overhead may rather high when processing a real time device command. Your thoughts?

thebearmay · August 1, 2022, 8:08pm

I didn't optimize the login, but I was thinking that you could probably save the cookie value to state, and reuse it from there instead of requesting it each time (on my todo list to test, but...)

arnb · August 1, 2022, 9:30pm

Decided to store it in a virtual device, quick and easy.

andutgv · October 21, 2023, 7:49am

Any updates regarding this?

I am trying to store a string > 255 (weather summary from darksky) so i can send it to a speech device with %variable% attribute (sonos one).

UPDATE: nevermind, using local variable works. Maybe others will have the same issue, so i will leave this as a partial fix.