generateKey

generateKey(args): string

Serialise call arguments into the query-key segment that identifies them.

Equal Candid values must give equal keys, and different values different ones, which plain JSON.stringify does not ensure:

Record fields are unordered in Candid, and TanStack Query hashes object keys order-independently, so plain objects are written with their keys sorted. Otherwise { owner, subaccount } and { subaccount, owner } — the same record, the same bytes on the wire — got separate cache entries, and getQueryData / invalidateQueries spelled one way missed the other.
JSON writes NaN, Infinity and -Infinity all as null, and -0 as 0, so a query for one float was answered from another’s cache entry. They are written as "\u0000NaN", "\u0000Infinity", "\u0000-Infinity" and "\u0000-0", and a string that starts with U+0000 gets one more in front, so no string argument can produce that tag. It has to be unforgeable: this function is public and an infinite query’s getKeyArgs may return any value, so a bare "Infinity" would let [Infinity] and ["Infinity"] share a cache entry.
A blob given as a Uint8Array, a byte array or (to a DisplayReactor) hex text sends the same bytes in every form. Reactor.generateQueryKey hands each blob of the method’s arguments over as a BlobKey, written here as "\u0000blob:" and its lowercase hex. It carries the same tag, so no argument can produce it: not hex text given to a Reactor, which refuses it, and not a BigInt, whose digits are also hex.
A value the reactor refuses can have the JSON of one it takes: undefined is written as null in an array, and a BigInt as its digits. The key hands such a value over as a RefusedKey, written here as "\u0000refused:" and the key of the value alone, behind the same tag.

BigInts are written as decimal strings. Everything else — including every string that does not start with U+0000, and an object whose keys are already in sorted order — serialises exactly as before.

Parameters

args

any[]

Returns

string