certain OQL is breaking my JSON structure

Question

The API I'm using (iTop) allows a get request to have a JSON body, and an OQL statement within the JSON in the form:

json_data= { 
             ..., 
             "key": "SELECT Animal", 
             ... 
           }

I have been using %, the wildcard character in iTop's OQL, like so:

json_data= { 
             ..., 
             "key": "SELECT Animal WHERE name LIKE '%ant%'", 
             ... 
           }

(which would return animals such as "ant", "manta ray", and "anteater")

Problems arise when I have a repeated character right after the % symbol:

json_data= { 
             ..., 
             "key": "SELECT Animal WHERE name LIKE '%aardvark%'", 
             ... 
           }

The API responds with:

Error: Parameter json_data is not a valid JSON structure

I have noticed this behavior with other characters, but not all (%bb, %cc, etc. break the structure, but %hh, and %zz do not).

Is this a problem with the way the API parses the JSON, or is there something I am doing wrong? Is %aa a possible escape character, or some type of regex syntax? I have not found any relevant information in the API documentation.

Answer 1

with help from the sourceforge forums, the solution is to replace the '%' with a unicode % ('\u0025').

SELECT Animal WHERE name LIKE '\u0025aardvark\u0025'

This is likely a bug in iTop...