3 ms·

Classic! We named our guild in EQ "NULL", as a joke. People would comment that we had a problem when they saw us running around with "<NULL>" running over our h

by sulam 9y ago

Classic! We named our guild in EQ "NULL", as a joke. People would comment that we had a problem when they saw us running around with "<NULL>" running over our head. It bit us on the ass when someone went to Sony's EQ con one year, and they literally couldn't print out their badge because "your guild name is NULL? Really?"

oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
> they literally couldn't print out their badge I still don't quite get how this doesn't work. Why are they handling "NULL" as a special case? What's coercing "NULL" into null?
- T2_t2 9y ago
  Bad coding.
- sulam 9y ago
  It was due to the way they exported the data. They used a SQL statement, and if you weren’t in a guild then the SQL would produce NULL. That output was then used to generate PDF badges, and it tried to do some filtering for NULL guilds. The person writing that script clearly did not anticipate there actually being a guild named NULL.
  - drb91 9y ago
    NULL or ‘NULL’? There’s a clear and obvious difference there.
    - kalleboo 9y ago
      Unless you're using ColdFusion https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4456438/how-to-pass-null-a-real-surname-to-a-soap-web-service-in-actionscript-3 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4456438/how-to-pass-null...
dyukqu 9y ago
It reminded me of a Wired article from 2015 about a guy with the last name "Null" - https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/ https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/