The Weird and The Wonderful

The Weird and The Wonderful forum is a place to post Coding Horrors, Worst Practices, and the occasional flash of brilliance.

We all come across code that simply boggles the mind. Lazy kludges, embarrassing mistakes, horrid workarounds and developers just not quite getting it. And then somedays we come across - or write - the truly sublime.

Post your Best, your worst, and your most interesting. But please - no programming questions . This forum is purely for amusement and discussions on code snippets. All actual programming questions will be removed.

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Re: I failed to predict this one...new csv format

David A. Gray2-Dec-17 20:06

David A. Gray

2-Dec-17 20:06

This sounds a lot like an issue that I encountered about 3 years ago, which gave rise to the GitHub - txwizard/AnyCSV: Parse ANY CSV String, even X.509 Digital Signature Fields! library for the Microsoft .NET Framework, about which I wrote two years ago, in A Robust CSV Reader. The library is also available as a NuGet package, at NuGet Gallery | WizardWrx.AnyCSV 4.0.106.27625.

David A. Gray
Delivering Solutions for the Ages, One Problem at a Time
Interpreting the Fundamental Principle of Tabular Reporting

Re: I failed to predict this one...new csv format

Fueled By Decaff15-Dec-17 6:16

Fueled By Decaff

15-Dec-17 6:16

kmoorevs wrote:
(generally a sign of formatted numbers)

Wait, what?

Quoted text is supposed to be string data, particularly when there are commas in it, not a way of saying 'it's a number, Jim, but not as we know it'.

They are really killing that CSV format. I feel your pain.

Re: I failed to predict this one...new csv format

kmoorevs15-Dec-17 7:54

kmoorevs

15-Dec-17 7:54

Fueled By Caffeine wrote:
Quoted text is supposed to be string data

Yes, sorry I misquoted! Laugh | :laugh:

Yes, what I meant to say was that we apply special treatment to quoted fields/text where a number is expected but never expected each line to be double-quoted.

It basically caused my parsing routine to behave in an unexpected way...not too difficult to fix once you see it coming. Smile | :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse

Re: I failed to predict this one...new csv format

#realJSOP16-Feb-18 7:02

#realJSOP

16-Feb-18 7:02

Doesn't that simply import each row as a single field per row? Seems to me your code is working.

".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013

Re: I failed to predict this one...new csv format

kmoorevs16-Feb-18 7:35

kmoorevs

16-Feb-18 7:35

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Seems to me your code is working.

Getting one field where multiple fields are expected was a problem. Confused | :confused:

The original logic was just to remove any commas found between double-quotes. Doing this with the single field (of comma delimited values) just pushed everything together and made a mess.

A little added logic to detect if the entire line is wrapped fixed everything. Smile | :)

Easy.

The point was that sometimes you just have to take what the client gives you and make it work...that and how lazy (or stupid) the client's dev was for not understanding what the problem was. Smile | :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse

I'm a teapot

Nathan Minier9-Nov-17 1:30

Nathan Minier

9-Nov-17 1:30

So, going through MDN's documented HTTP response status codes I ran into this nugget in the 400's:

418 I'm a teapot
The server refuses the attempt to brew coffee with a teapot.

I can appreciate the sentiment.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli

Re: I'm a teapot

Richard Deeming9-Nov-17 1:50

Richard Deeming

9-Nov-17 1:50

Wikipedia has slightly more information:

List of HTTP status codes - Wikipedia[^]:
This code was defined in 1998 as one of the traditional IETF April Fools' jokes, in RFC 2324, Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol[^], and is not expected to be implemented by actual HTTP servers.

But with stories like this[^] getting more common, it can't be long until this is used in a real project. Laugh | :laugh:

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer

Re: I'm a teapot

Jochen Arndt14-Nov-17 23:58

Jochen Arndt

14-Nov-17 23:58

There were attempts to remove that status code: net/http: remove support for status code 418 I'm a Teapot · Issue #21326 · golang/go · GitHub[^].

But the community resisted: Save Error Code 418[^]

And the iniator of the removement accepted the resistance and requested a reservation: Reserving the 418 HTTP Status Code[^]

Re: I'm a teapot

Nagy Vilmos15-Nov-17 1:57

Nagy Vilmos

15-Nov-17 1:57

In other news, Mark Nottingham lives at home with Mom and his friends are like his sense of humour.

Nonexistent.

veni bibi saltavi

Re: I'm a teapot

GuyThiebaut14-Nov-17 21:48

GuyThiebaut

14-Nov-17 21:48

One of the teams where I work are called the 418's and they are named after this response.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

― Christopher Hitchens

Re: I'm a teapot

n0rthbridge30-Nov-17 6:10

n0rthbridge

30-Nov-17 6:10

Use Chrome's developer tools to view the HTTP status code returned when visiting google.com/teapot.
[https://www.google.com/teapot]

Re: I'm a teapot

Nathan Minier30-Nov-17 7:02

Nathan Minier

30-Nov-17 7:02

Love it!

I also enjoy how every time you click the teapot, it triggers an analytics callback.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli

Re: I'm a teapot

Marc Clifton2-Dec-17 15:55

Marc Clifton

2-Dec-17 15:55

Hah! I should return this code to malicious/blacklisted IP's. Laugh | :laugh:

Latest Article - Class-less Coding - Minimalist C# and Why F# and Function Programming Has Some Advantages

Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny

Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802

Re: I'm a teapot

Nathan Minier4-Dec-17 1:12

Nathan Minier

4-Dec-17 1:12

I've been thinking that it would be perfect for malformed user input.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli

I didn't write this..

Sascha Lefèvre8-Nov-17 12:09

Sascha Lefèvre

8-Nov-17 12:09

no I didn't...

..a much younger me wrote this piece of "code" which is bad in so many ways I don't even want to count them:

C++

CString StrEncode(CString str, bool decode)
{
	CString map = "S)y³T<.zÖ?tp3~o`u^F}G\\0D_K:>1µ5&|ßJ§ö $E!rÜq-I]W%=Xü´Yl/(78A#dHm@BvQLM'*Pc+2Äxf,ghCnsä;6UO{9a[b4Ne²wjkViRZ°";

	short len = map.GetLength();
	short add = decode ? len : 0;
	short mul = decode ? -1 : 1;
	short off = str.GetLength() % len;

	CString out;

	for(short i=0; i<str.GetLength(); i++)
	{
		if(map.Find(str.GetAt(i)) == -1)
			out += str.GetAt(i);
		else
			out += map.GetAt((map.Find(str.GetAt(i)) + add + ((i + off) * mul) % len) % len);
	}

	return out;
}

The only good thing about it is that it served its purpose of weakly obfuscating strings.

Please absolve me Laugh | :laugh:

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson

Re: I didn't write this..

Marc Clifton8-Nov-17 12:49

Marc Clifton

8-Nov-17 12:49

Sascha Lefèvre wrote:
Please absolve me

To be forgiven, you must obtain an abacus from ebay and perform the computations of your algorithm by hand with nothing but the abacus. Wink | ;)

Re: I didn't write this..

Sascha Lefèvre9-Nov-17 0:21

Sascha Lefèvre

9-Nov-17 0:21

I'll possibly carry this burden forever then Laugh | :laugh:

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson

Re: I didn't write this..

raddevus8-Nov-17 14:58

raddevus

8-Nov-17 14:58

I fixed it for you : FTFY - rewrote it in C# so you can run it in LINQPad[^]

I'll put this out on GitHub as soon as possible. Laugh | :laugh:

void Main()
{
	Console.WriteLine(StrEncode("Here it is", true));
    Console.WriteLine(StrEncode("´;µsDUkGäB", false));
}

String StrEncode(String str, bool decode)
{
	String map = "S)y³T<.zÖ?tp3~o`u^F}G\\0D_K:>1µ5&|ßJ§ö $E!rÜq-I]W%=Xü´Yl/(78A#dHm@BvQLM'*Pc+2Äxf,ghCnsä;6UO{9a[b4Ne²wjkViRZ°";
 
	int len = map.Length;
	int add = decode ? len : 0;
	int mul = decode ? -1 : 1;
	int off = str.Length % len;
 
	String outMsg = String.Empty;
 	//Console.WriteLine(map);
	for(int i=0; i<str.Length; i++)
	{
		if(!map.Contains(str[i]))
			outMsg += str[i];
		else
		{
			outMsg += map[(map.IndexOf(str[i]) + add + ((i + off) * mul) % len) % len];
		}
	}
 
	return outMsg;
}