FD1 Reply Format Options

FD1 allows you to specify the reply format for dates and money. The system has its own defaults but you can override them on the server.

The formats can be overridden on a per request basis using the "rf" parameter, or at session login time. The value used cascades from request, to session, to system default.

"rf" is an object providing the formats you want.

rf: {
    money: "currency value",
    date:  "yyyy-mmm-dd hh:min:sec"
}

Dates and Times

Note, FD1 does not allow dates using either MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY formats. eg. 03/02/2020. While these are great formats for users, they are locale specific and incredibly hard for servers to understand the exact date. The format 3-Feb-2020 is acceptable as it is unambiguous.

Within FD1 protocol, all date fields are clearly documented if they are local time or UTC. Some date formats want the timezone information as well for local time, but this isnt always available.

Money

Monetary amounts should not be stored and processed using floating point datatypes. This also means you should not use Number format in Javascript. The issue is that floating point datatypes cannot hold precise decimals (search for 0.1 + 0.2 not equal 0.3 to learn more) This can create some real and visible issues around pricing, totals and math.

However, floating point numbers are very easy to work with in code, and sometimes these minor differences are not important.

Rounding issues crop up way more often than you might expect. A 3items for $10 has a price of 3.33333333 per item. Rounded to 2dp thats 3.33. But 3x 3.33 is 9.99.

Each of the above types can have prefix "object" or "array", in which case the amount is written to an "amt" field or the first array element, and the currency is in "cur" or second array field. The option "currency value" cannot use these prefixes.

saletotal: "17.23"

saletotal: {
    amt: "17.23",
    cur: "AUD"
}

saletotal: [17.23, "AUD"]

Javascript. For simple reports either the real or string formats are generally acceptable. If performing math, especially using salesbuilder functions, then use caution. For precise handling consider using a library such as BigNumber.js and the string format.