5 ms·

Yes, don't do that, name the kid "null" and see the world burning.

by bierjunge 5y ago

yellow_lead 5y ago
See your kid have trouble getting any official documentation :/
- tomalpha 5y ago
  Or booking flights, filing taxes, signing up for shifts at work: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-break-computer-systems https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-b...
rPlayer6554 5y ago
Poor Bobby tables.... https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/
belter 5y ago
A common name... https://www.facebook.com/public/James-Null https://www.facebook.com/public/James-Null as well as Abcde https://www.facebook.com/public/Abcde https://www.facebook.com/public/Abcde
- samhw 5y ago
  Relatedly, there's the classic of this woman with the surname 'True', whose iCloud didn't work as a result: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/06/coding-error-locks-true-author-out-of-icloud https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/06/coding-error-lock...
nonameiguess 5y ago
Need to be careful with that. There was a guy in California a few years back that decided the license plate "NULL" would be a fun joke, and he ended up being charged every ticket issued in the state where the license plate wasn't entered.
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  I recall pondering the mechanics of this back when I first read about it. Is some software actually replacing an input of "" (empty string) with "NULL"? Or is some comparison so loosely typed that a value of type null is considered equal enough to the string "NULL"?
  - shrikant 5y ago
    Maybe they were using an Oracle database, where (shockingly) empty strings are treated as equivalent to NULLs. Edited to add: A "famous" wtf-worthy explainer from Oracle: https://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:5984520277372 https://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUEST... Relevant snippet: '' when assigned to a char(1) becomes ' ' (char types are blank padded strings). '' when assigned to a varchar2(1) becomes '' which is a zero length string and a zero length string is NULL in Oracle (it is no long '')
    - hunter2_ 5y ago
      The conflation of empty string with a real null isn't great, but it doesn't also imply conflation of the string "NULL" which is what I'm trying to figure out. The four-character sequence shouldn't ever be considered something other than a four-character string, except for particular non-user-facing situations such as when actually writing code. Even spreadsheet software, which does all kinds of heuristics to find numbers in strings for example, doesn't treat the string "NULL" as anything other than a four-character string, to my knowledge.
  - occamrazor 5y ago
    Somewhere some system depends on CSV files in Lotus 1-2-3 format transferred over a non 8-bit safe proprietary UUCP variant.
- dolmen 5y ago
  https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/ https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-ha...

Yes, don't do that, name the kid "null" and see the world burning.

yellow_lead 5y ago

See your kid have trouble getting any official documentation :/

tomalpha 5y ago
Or booking flights, filing taxes, signing up for shifts at work: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-break-computer-systems https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-that-b...

rPlayer6554 5y ago

Poor Bobby tables.... https://xkcd.com/327/ https://xkcd.com/327/

belter 5y ago

A common name... https://www.facebook.com/public/James-Null https://www.facebook.com/public/James-Null as well as Abcde https://www.facebook.com/public/Abcde https://www.facebook.com/public/Abcde

samhw 5y ago
Relatedly, there's the classic of this woman with the surname 'True', whose iCloud didn't work as a result: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/06/coding-error-locks-true-author-out-of-icloud https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/06/coding-error-lock...

nonameiguess 5y ago

Need to be careful with that. There was a guy in California a few years back that decided the license plate "NULL" would be a fun joke, and he ended up being charged every ticket issued in the state where the license plate wasn't entered.

hunter2_ 5y ago
I recall pondering the mechanics of this back when I first read about it. Is some software actually replacing an input of "" (empty string) with "NULL"? Or is some comparison so loosely typed that a value of type null is considered equal enough to the string "NULL"?
- shrikant 5y ago
  Maybe they were using an Oracle database, where (shockingly) empty strings are treated as equivalent to NULLs. Edited to add: A "famous" wtf-worthy explainer from Oracle: https://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:5984520277372 https://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUEST... Relevant snippet: '' when assigned to a char(1) becomes ' ' (char types are blank padded strings). '' when assigned to a varchar2(1) becomes '' which is a zero length string and a zero length string is NULL in Oracle (it is no long '')
  - hunter2_ 5y ago
    The conflation of empty string with a real null isn't great, but it doesn't also imply conflation of the string "NULL" which is what I'm trying to figure out. The four-character sequence shouldn't ever be considered something other than a four-character string, except for particular non-user-facing situations such as when actually writing code. Even spreadsheet software, which does all kinds of heuristics to find numbers in strings for example, doesn't treat the string "NULL" as anything other than a four-character string, to my knowledge.
- occamrazor 5y ago
  Somewhere some system depends on CSV files in Lotus 1-2-3 format transferred over a non 8-bit safe proprietary UUCP variant.
dolmen 5y ago
https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/ https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-ha...