Buffer to JSON requires parsing twice. Hyperledger Fabric v1.4 Node.js Chaincode

Question

This is the chaincode (Node.js), which returns the JSON PO as Buffer to the Fabric Middleware (Node SDK)

    async queryPo(ctx, poNumber) {
    const poAsBytes = await ctx.stub.getState(poNumber); // get the po from chaincode state
    if (!poAsBytes || poAsBytes.length === 0) {
        throw new Error(`${poNumber} does not exist`);
    }
    console.info(poAsBytes.toString());
    return poAsBytes.toString();
}

getState reference: Hyperledger Fabric Node.js Chaincode Doc

This is the Middleware Code,

async function queryOneRO(roid, userID, channelID) {
    try {
        const myresult = await getContract(userID, channelID);
        const contract = myresult.contract;
        const result = await contract.evaluateTransaction('queryRo', roid);
        const gateway = myresult.gateway;
        gateway.disconnect();
        const data = (JSON.parse(result.toString()));
        if (data.docType === "ro") {
            console.log("data1", data);
            return data;
        }

    } catch (error) {
        return '{"status":"Failed to evaluate the transaction' + error + '"}';
    }
}

Which requires dual JSON.parse, inorder to work:

 const data = JSON.parse(JSON.parse(result.toString()));
            if (data.docType === "ro") {
                console.log("data1", data);
                return data;
            }

Here are the sample results of each step:

result:

< Buffer 22 7b 5c 22 41 6d 6e ... >

result.toString():

"{\"AmndType\":\"\",\"docType\":\"ro\"}"

JSON.parse(result.toString()):

{"AmndType":"","docType":"ro"}

JSON.parse(JSON.parse(result.toString())):

 { AmndType: '',
     docType: 'ro' }

This is where JSON.parse is required twice. Why?

The Dev Environment is : Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or 18.04 LTS, Hyperledger v1.4, Node.js v10.16.3, GOlang:1.12.9

During deployment in different environment with same software & OS stack as above, except GOlang:1.11.x, the JSON.parse is not needed twice. We had to remove all the second JSON.parse (). Why?

Answer 1

As, @david_d mentioned above in comments, it is the issue with the dependencies in Chaincode. We have to use 1.4.2 and above "dependencies": { "fabric-contract-api": "^1.4.2", "fabric-shim": "^1.4.2" } instead "dependencies": { "fabric-contract-api": "^1.4.1", "fabric-shim": "^1.4.1" } in package.json