Preserving Leading and Trailing Spaces in Automation Variables

[pwaller (Philipp Waller)]

Hello Home Assistant Community,

I’m encountering an issue with an script where I want to set a variable with text, including leading and trailing spaces, and then pass this string to the text.set_value service while preserving all spaces. Here’s the code snippet:

alias: TextSetValueTest
sequence:
  - variables:
      text: "          HOME"
  - service: text.set_value
    data:
      value: "{{text}}"
      target:
        entity_id: text.ff_office_switch_door_statustext1
mode: restart

The problem I’m facing is that when I pass the string to the text.set_value service, it removes all the spaces.

I’ve tried several workarounds such as using the intend filter, replace filter, and more, but unfortunately, none of them have been successful. Whenever I output the Jinja variable or use a filter, it always returns the string without spaces.

Interestingly, this behavior only occurs within the context of an automation. When I replicate the same logic in the DevTools → Template Editor, it works as expected.

I would appreciate any support or guidance on how to preserve the spaces.

[123 (Taras)]

@pwaller

to the text.set_value

Is the issue limited to the use of text.set_value or does it also occur for other service calls such as input_text.set_value?

[pwaller (Philipp Waller)]

I tried other services as well but the problem is the same:

alias: TextSetValueTest2
sequence:
  - variables:
      text: "          HOME"
  - service: browser_mod.console
    data:
      message: "{{text}}"
    target:
      entity_id: binary_sensor.pw_macbook_chrome
mode: restart

[123 (Taras)]

Your test results imply that the value of a script variable is subjected to a trim operation where leading/trailing whitespace is removed.

@pwaller

When I replicate the same logic in the DevTools → Template Editor, it works as expected.

In the Template Editor, you’re defining a Jinja2 variable (used within a template) whereas in the automation you’re defining a script variable (used within the entire automation/script).

[pwaller (Philipp Waller)]

I suspect that the variable is being returned as a YAML scalar value, which is always trimmed, as indicated by the debugger (value without quotes). Unfortunately, a basic string {{value|string}} filter doesn’t resolve the problem.

— vs —

When quotes are introduced, the string is correctly passed, but the quotes are also considered part of the string.

Unfortunately, escaping doesn’t help in this case.

[123 (Taras)]

Looks like you’ll have to pad it with leading spaces in the message option.

alias: TextSetValueTest2
sequence:
  - variables:
      text: "HOME"
  - service: browser_mod.console
    data:
      message: "          {{text}}"
    target:
      entity_id: binary_sensor.pw_macbook_chrome
mode: restart

[pwaller (Philipp Waller)]

I ventured into this rabbit hole with no success.

[123 (Taras)]

So what you’re saying is that the service call also performs an implicit trim on its value?

In that case, looks like there’s no recourse.

[pwaller (Philipp Waller)]

I can reproduce the behavior independently of a service call within a “variables” block as well. I have summarized the problem and my attempted solutions in a copy-and-paste script here:

alias: Try to Perserve Spaces
sequence:
  - variables:
      text: "        HOME"
      opt1: "{{text}}"
      opt2: "{{text|string}}"
      opt3a: "\"{{text}}\""
      opt3b: "{{opt3a | replace('\"', '')}}"
      opt4: \"{{text}}\"
      opt5: "{{ ' '| safe * 8 }}{{text}}"
      opt6: "{{text[0:12]}}"
  - stop: ""
mode: restart

None of the options returns the expected result. But I suppose there are some other options that I am not aware of.