The same property of Note is sometimes an array of one object, sometimes the object itself. Why? - adobe-indesign

Question

The type of a Note’s parent or storyOffset property depends on whether the note was obtained from a Text or a Story. Why? How to deal cleanly with this in code working on a Note without knowing where it came from?
The following scripts expose the situation.
// INDESIGN CS6 8.1 VERSION
var doc = app.documents.add();
doc.pages.item(0).textFrames.add();
var story = doc.stories[0];
story.insertionPoints[0].contents = "x";
story.insertionPoints[0].notes.add();
var range = story.texts.itemByRange(story.characters.item(0),
story.characters.item(1));
alert( story .notes[0].parent.constructor.name); // "InsertionPoint"
alert( range .notes[0].parent.constructor.name); // "Array"
alert( story .notes[0].storyOffset.constructor.name); // "InsertionPoint"
alert( range .notes[0].storyOffset.constructor.name); // "Array"
 
// INCOPY CS6 8.1 VERSION
app.documents.add();
var story = app.selection[0].parentStory;
story.insertionPoints[0].contents = "x";
story.insertionPoints[0].notes.add();
var range = story.texts.itemByRange(story.characters.item(0),
story.characters.item(1));
alert( story .notes[0].parent.constructor.name); // "InsertionPoint"
alert( range .notes[0].parent.constructor.name); // "Array"
alert( story .notes[0].storyOffset.constructor.name); // "InsertionPoint"
alert( range .notes[0].storyOffset.constructor.name); // "Array"

Answer 1

You have to test for every parent constructor that you want to handle. See the documentation for the class hierarchy of a Text object. For example, use a function like this:
var isText = function(text) {
var c = text.constructor;
return c === Paragraph || c === Line || c === Word
|| c === Text || c === TextStyleRange || c === Story
|| c === InsertionPoint || c === TextColumn;
}
isText(story.notes[0].parent) // => true