Case Comment error STRING_TOO_LONG, Body: data value too large

Question

I am facing the issue on the case comment size. There is an inbound email handler which creates a case comment on a specific case record based on the incoming email body.

Sometimes its giving error - "STRING_TOO_LONG, Body: data value too large". Then i checked the limit for case comment body and its 4000 bytes and not characters.

Now the problem is how do i check for size of a string as bytes and not as characters in apex? I found that string .size() method returns number of characters and not no of bytes.

Please help.

Thanks

Answer 1

The documentation for String.length() (there is no String.size()) explains that it:

Returns the number of 16-bit Unicode characters contained in the String.

So the number of 8 bit bytes is 2x the length of the string. (And so to fix the problem you need to truncate at 2000 characters.)

PS Looks like Blob.valueOf(stringValue).size() is a better way to go - see that answer.

Answer 2

Use Blob.valueOf(stringValue).size() to get the size in bytes. It all depends on what characters are sent in the email that determines the size in bytes.

The following method worked for me to abbreviate the string in bytes:

private String byteAbbreviate(String stringToAbbreviate, Integer byteLength) {
    //First abbrevate using the character length. This will get us close
    stringToAbbreviate = stringToAbbreviate.abbreviate(byteLength);
    Integer abbLength = byteLength;
    while (Blob.valueOf(stringToAbbreviate).size() > byteLength) {
      abbLength = abbLength - 1;
      stringToAbbreviate = stringToAbbreviate.abbreviate(abbLength);
    }
    return stringToAbbreviate;
}

You can use DMLOptions to truncate the CaseComment when it is inserted.

Database.DMLOptions dmo = new Database.DMLOptions();
dmo.allowFieldTruncation = true;
Database.insert(comment, dmo);

Answer 3

Database.DMLOptions dmo = new Database.DMLOptions();
dmo.allowFieldTruncation = true;
Database.insert(comment, dmo);

If I understand correctly, this will truncate the casecomment body only when the characters exceed 4000 right?