Adobe After Effects Expressions

Problem with CSV [invalid text layer]

Posted by Fabrice Leconte on January 5, 2021 at 1:17 pm

Hello,

I wrote an extendScript to get values from a CSV file.

My CSV file looks like this:

number,name,country,team,time,color

44,Lewis Hamilton,United Kingdom,MERCEDES,1'27.866,#00d2be

33,Max Verstappen,Netherlands, RED BULL RACING HONDA,+0.213,#0600ef

55,Carlos Sainz,Spain,MCLAREN RENAULT,+0.264,#ff8700

11,Sergio Perez,Mexico,RACING POINT BWT MERCEDES,+0.289,#f596c8

3,Daniel Ricciardo,Australia,RENAULT,+0.302,#fff500

16,Charles Leclerc,Monaco,FERRARI, +0.455,#dc0000

10,Pierre Gasly,France,ALPHATAURI HONDA,+0.521,#ffffff

if I type:

var datas = app.project.activeItem.layer("F1 Starting Grid.csv")("Data")("Outline");
alert(datas("number")("number 0").value);

it returns 44

That’s OK, but if I type:

var datas = app.project.activeItem.layer("F1 Starting Grid.csv")("Data")("Outline");
alert(datas("name")("name 0").value);
// I have an error:
// Unable to execute script at line X After Effects error: invalid text layer

Fabrice Leconte replied 5 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies

3 Replies

Brendon Murphy
January 7, 2021 at 5:09 am

I haven’t tested these out, but my guess is that “value” can return numbers, but not text strings. You might try dropping the “.value”,and/or using a toString conversion.
Filip Vandueren
January 7, 2021 at 9:16 am

Yep, looks like that’s a serious bug.

Anything that’s not a number is of type “Text-Document” and apparantly when extendScript wants to find the value of a TextDocument, it expects that to be inside of a textLayer and trips up.

I can’t find a way around it other than parsing the whole csv yourself in extendscript using a library like babyparse or papaparse.

Best to submit it as a bug with adobe
Fabrice Leconte
January 7, 2021 at 6:34 pm
Yes, probably a bug.

Finally, I created a temporary text layer to store the value by adding an expression on it:
```
"footage('F1 Starting Grid.csv').dataValue([0,0]);"
```
and then I removed the temporary text layer when I don’t need.

That’s weird but it works. ^^

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Problem with CSV [invalid text layer]