101–110 of 484 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, because it's not unsanitized SQL at fault, but people writing a literal NULL in the license plate field when there isn't one.
Actually, I think it's doubtful the folks at the private processing facility are actually writing 'NULL', but my guess is the DB field is just not set (i.e. left as NULL), and then when the info is read out somewhere it's just printed as the string literal value.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On top of that, if anything, forcing the government to fix it's bad code ( insert snarky ambiguity between software code and legal code ) can't be a bad thing. I'd buy the guy a beer.
The problem is it's a "a privately operated citation processing center" that's causing the problem. They might even be instructed to hand-enter a NULL for these cases. I'm don't really see an incentive for the govt agency to do anything about it. It's no skin off their nose. They'll just keep sending the tickets.
This is funny. I wonder what would happen if you could put a 'NOT ' in front of your plate number... would everyone but you get a ticket?
Nah, because it's not unsanitized SQL at fault, but people writing a literal NULL in the license plate field when there isn't one.
What this usually is is the result of systems that talk to systems that talk to systems that talk to systems, all in different legacy formats never written to be interchange formats. One system has true SQL NULLs, the next system down the chain only accepts strings for that field, NULL gets written as the most sensible string, and then from that point on all downstream systems can't tell the difference between the original system having had an SQL NULL or having had the string NULL.
I have a family member who's license plate started with "&". The DMV accepts it, plates were ordered online fine, but police systems can't handle it apparently, to my family members ultimate discomfort. I commonly joke it probably gets the individual out of automated tickers for speeding and red lights, but when an officer pulls them over we sometimes need to explain that the "&" is dropped in the system (or so we've…
This isn't even a coding error, NULL is apparently valid license plate, and for some reason there is a private processing center typing it in to the government system. First of all they are accidentally committing fraud (libel?) against this guy. But more importantly, why is there a private processing center? Don't the officers type this in as they fill out the ticket? or even just scan the plates? If there aren't pl…
I would take that with a grain of salt. The linked article on a talk-radio site, and was likely intended as a wacky news bite that the hosts breeze through and then make jokes about. I figured the exact technical details of what is causing the problem was lost in translation. More likely that they were leaving the plate blank, and then the backend software was confusing null database fields with the string "NULL".
Shout out to all the Python programmers from the other frontpage thread who are responsible for bugs like this with their crappy scripting languages.
Shout out to all the Python programmers from the other frontpage thread who are responsible for bugs like this with their crappy scripting languages.
Well - Python doesn’t use NULL, to be clear.
null
NULL is not definedEarlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I think it's doubtful the folks at the private processing facility are actually writing 'NULL', but my guess is the DB field is just not set (i.e. left as NULL), and then when the info is read out somewhere it's just printed as the string literal value.
Wouldn't their license plate be in quotes, though? 'NULL' != NULL
What are the odds at least one system silently filters out apostrophes as invalid characters in license plate fields? Pretty good. These systems are often unattended, unmonitored processes often maintained by people who either can't fix errors upstream, or don't even want to, so these conversions are often written extremely permissively, trying to get through the data with whatever heuristics are necessary for the process to just Keep Working.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah, because it's not unsanitized SQL at fault, but people writing a literal NULL in the license plate field when there isn't one.
I doubt that. Normal people do not tend to use the word NULL at all. What this usually is is the result of systems that talk to systems that talk to systems that talk to systems, all in different legacy formats never written to be interchange formats. One system has true SQL NULLs, the next system down the chain only accepts strings for that field, NULL gets written as the most sensible string, and then from that poi…
This isn't even a coding error, NULL is apparently valid license plate, and for some reason there is a private processing center typing it in to the government system. First of all they are accidentally committing fraud (libel?) against this guy. But more importantly, why is there a private processing center? Don't the officers type this in as they fill out the ticket? or even just scan the plates? If there aren't pl…
Brand new cars don't yet have plates. Granted, most states now have dealer-printed labels with an identifier on them, but still, new cars don't immediately have plates when they roll off the lot.
I'm not sure if that's still happening.