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21–30 of 196 posts
Re: Null
#22I worked on an API that regularly got requests from the mobile app for GET /users/(null). I think that's Swift, or Obj-C's way of to-string'ing a null? I have a generational suffix on my name. I often include it, and quite often as the proper Unicode character, e.g., "Ⅲ". (Assuming HN displays it after I post this, try to select it; that's one character.) That wreaks a fair bit of havoc. When I was in high-school, I…
> Just today, Azure's support system can't handle (among many things) the outlandish characters of "". Which is great fun, since it's not like anyone would file a highly-technical support request with Azure… right?
Someone in Azure is definitely using the Windows reserved characters for filenames.
Re: Null
#23>While I’m not a QA or security professional, I have developed a knack for doing “stupid” things with software which causes it to malfunction. A person after my own heart. I've had many a dev go "why would you do that" In which I answer "it doesn't matter, but if you accept my input it's your job to ensure the app doesn't crash"
A favourite technique of one of my colleague's was just to mash the keyboard randomly to see if the app breaks.
It's very crude and not at all foolproof. For the lack of sophistication it's shockingly effective at highlighting a huge amount of assumptions we make about how software is / can be used.
Re: Null
#24Perl 5 has a taint mode built into the language. If enabled, it forces the developer to untaint every bit of user-controllable data (by running it through a pattern match) before doing anything dangerous with it. I can't believe that this isn't a standard feature in all languages.
Re: Null
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even PHP finds null==“null” to be false.
And at least you get to strongly compare by adding an extra = (e.g., ===, !==). I just wish the extra character (i.e., the not-as-default versions) weakened instead, like a tilde. But yes, all strings are truthy. Except an empty string! And maybe some little-used nullish characters? Doubtful, but...
> But yes, all strings are truthy. Except an empty string! And maybe some little-used nullish characters? Doubtful, but...
Or "0"
Re: Null
#26I worked on an API that regularly got requests from the mobile app for GET /users/(null). I think that's Swift, or Obj-C's way of to-string'ing a null? I have a generational suffix on my name. I often include it, and quite often as the proper Unicode character, e.g., "Ⅲ". (Assuming HN displays it after I post this, try to select it; that's one character.) That wreaks a fair bit of havoc. When I was in high-school, I…
Just as an aside, you can reformat the file system to be case-sensitive on MacOS. I think at $dayjob it's more or less policy to do so.
The only downside I have seen so far is that some software only runs on case-insensitive file systems. For example Photoshop did this last I checked.
Re: Null
#27Popey, I think I see you around these parts from time to time. If you're reading this:
You and Martin Wimpress are constant sources of inspiration for me and many others, who want to keep on discovering the world of FOSS software. Thanks for the many hours of entertainment in your podcasts and the help you provide to people on the forums and mailing lists. Excellent work!
Re: Null
#28>While I’m not a QA or security professional, I have developed a knack for doing “stupid” things with software which causes it to malfunction. A person after my own heart. I've had many a dev go "why would you do that" In which I answer "it doesn't matter, but if you accept my input it's your job to ensure the app doesn't crash"
Why do you require software to be more resilient than other things?
If I pour water in the gastank of my car, it will also fail to drive. Or gas in the sprinkler tank. So the car should somehow prevent the enduser putting the wrong thing in the tank?
Re: Null
#29People like that is the reason why this list was created https://github.com/minimaxir/big-list-of-naughty-strings/blo... My personal favorite is this one though "If you're reading this, you've been in a coma for almost 20 years now. We're trying a new technique. We don't know where this message will end up in your dream, but we hope it works. Please wake up, we miss you.",
Most of the things in this list I can see what they're testing for but your favorite stumps me. Can you give me a hint? Thanks.
Re: Null
#30Reminds me of https://www.wired.com/2015/11/null/ Numerous cases of encoding out of band data as a special case of in-band data.
My browser is set to not accept cookies from sites I don't have a relationship with, because … well, frankly, I don't know why the rest of y'all still let shady people on the Internet use your hard disk for their ad tracking. So, that link (like so many), just plain doesn't work. It just loads a white screen. There are many sites like this on the Internet. Twitter waffles between working and "Ooops! something went wr…
You convinced me. I just disabled cookies globally so I have to allow them individually for every website.