How to store user inputs using fulfillments in dialogflow

Question

I'm trying to make an app for Google Home that takes a users weight and says it back to them. Below is the index.js code for the intent responsible for doing this,

const functions = require('firebase-functions');
const {dialogflow} = require('actions-on-google');

const app = dialogflow({
    debug: true,
});

app.intent('vitals-weight', (conv) => {
    const weight = conv.parameters['weight'];
    const weight_name = conv.parameters['weight-name'];
    conv.ask('I have recorded that your weight is, ${weight} and ${weight-name}.');

exports.dialogflowFirebaseFulfillment = functions.https.onRequest(app);

'weight' and 'weight-name' are the entities in the intent that store the weight and the weight unit respectively. Is this the correct approach when trying to handle user data?

Answer 1

You have several errors in your code as it exists right now.

First is what I assume is a paste error. There is no closing bracket or parenthesis for the function. Since you say the function is being called, I assume this is actually in your code.

Your call to conv.ask() has a few logic errors.

The first is that you're using single quotation marks (or apostrophes), but are trying to do expression evaluation inside it (the ${} part). Expression evaluation is only done using backtick quotes `.

Additionally, you have an expression ${weight-name} , which I think you're trying to use to access the weight-name parameter (with a hyphen). But you've assigned the value of that parameter to a variable named weight_name (with an underscore). It is a good thing you did, too, since ${weight-name} is evaluated as "weight minus name", rather than as a variable with a hyphen in it, which isn't allowed. You probably want ${weight_name} there.

So that line should look something more like

conv.ask(`I have recorded that your weight is, ${weight} and ${weight_name}.`);