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> I've also heard of a fun database where the user "Geoffrey" was truncated to "G". I wonder why? (Hint: End of file) Sorry, I don't buy that one. There's no w
by driggs 2y ago
> I've also heard of a fun database where the user "Geoffrey" was truncated to "G". I wonder why? (Hint: End of file)
Sorry, I don't buy that one. There's no way the ascii string "eof" - especially lower-cased - would be interpreted as the C macro EOF, which is typically represented as the int -1. Sounds like a tall tale unless you've got proof.
- somat 2y agoI could see a poorly coded stringly parsed interface (think sql) triggering on a mid span character sequence. but I agree, it would have to be a real mess of an interface. For example the client uses "eof" to separate or end queries.
- snailmailstare 2y agoI first had to figure out why the G stayed put if it was being treated as last line... I've seen some terrible things and wouldn't doubt that a lot of pages in say the travel industry have a 2%+ failure rate at recording a signup.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoThere are more than a few legacy databases where a person's first name wouldn't be lowercased. I worked for a university awhile back, this is post-2010, and names were stored uppercase.
- threeducks 2y agoSorry, I don't have first-hand proof. But it seems that this issue is not rare: https://old.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/comments/4g70lj/someones_name_broke_our_code/ https://old.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/comments/4g70lj/s...