Life isn't easy if your last name is 'Null' as it still breaks database entries the world over

[shotgun_crab@lemmy.world]

As long as there's javascript somewhere, anything can happen

[afronaut@lemmy.cafe]

Lmao, I knew a guy from grade school with the last name Null.

[blackn1ght@feddit.uk]

It's baffling to me. Maybe I'm just used to using "modern" frameworks, but the only way this could be an issue is if if you literally check if the string value equals "null" and then replace it with a null value.

lastName = lastName.ToUpper() == "NULL" ? null : lastName;

Either that or the database has some bug where it's converting a string value of "null" into a null.

[slaxis@discuss.tchncs.de]

That is something I’ve had to do on rare occasions because people set up and store info in stupid ways…

[narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee]

Maybe your app is based on WordPress :'D

[demonvisual@lemm.ee]

Isn't that falsifying legal documents? In many countries that would land you in jail? Am I wrong, did the people really run that risk?

[cocodapuf@lemmy.world]

Unless you’re coding from scratch it’s hard to not do this with any modern framework.

I think that word modern is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

A lot of systems simply aren't modern. There's always that mentality of "well, it's been working for the last 12 years, let's not mess with it now", despite all the valid objections like "but it's running on Windows2000” or "it's a data beach waiting to happen"...

[keenflame@feddit.nu]

I bet, I can't even read this article without confusion

[scrollone@feddit.it]

It's funny because I also learned on [Object object].

[notmyoldredditname@lemmy.world]

Hey AI can you swap this 2015 corolla with a green 2019 Mazda 2.

Keep the license plate the same!

And remember THERE ARE FOUR PASSENGER DOORS NOT 6

[llewellyn@lemm.ee]

What is a data beach?

[llewellyn@lemm.ee]

Sounds like a promise of magic!

[kava@lemmy.world]

How do devs make this mistake

it can happen many different ways if you're not explicitly watching out for these types of things

example let's say you have a csv file with a bunch of names

id, last_name
1, schaffer
2, thornton
3, NULL
4, smith
5, "NULL"

if you use the following to import into postgres

COPY user_data (id, last_name)
FROM '/path/to/data.csv'
WITH (FORMAT csv, HEADER true);

number 5 will be imported as a string "NULL" but number 3 will be imported as a NULL value. of course, this is why you sanitize the data but I can imagine this happening countless times at companies all over the country

there are easy fixes if you're paying attention

COPY user_data (id, last_name)
FROM '/path/to/data.csv'
WITH (FORMAT csv, HEADER true, NULL '');

sets the empty string to NULL value.

---

example with js

fetch('/api/user/1')
  .then(response => response.json())
  .then(data => {
    if (data.lastName == "null") {
      console.log("No last name found");
    } else {
      console.log("Last name is:", data.lastName);
    }
  });

if data is

data = {
  id: 5,
  lastName: "null"
};

then the if statement will trigger- as if there was no last name. that's why you gotta know the language you're using and the potential pitfalls

now you may ask -- why not just do

if (data.lastName === null)

instead? But what if the system you're working on uses JSON.parse(data) and that auto-converts everything to a string? it's a very natural move to check for the string "null"

obviously if you're paying attention and understand the pitfalls of certain languages (like javascript's type coercion and the particularities of JSON.parse()) it becomes easy but it's something that is honestly very easy to overlook

[cocodapuf@lemmy.world]

Thanks, I missed that

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

The most common source of security vulnerabilities is memory corruption and off by one errors.

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

And here I am at undefined years old, learning for the first time.

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

As a backbend dev, I blame DBAs. We were forced to support CSV imports from out support team so they could fix data issues on their own, and now we have some wonky data in prod...

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

Yup, then it becomes a front-end problem to deal with wonky input. As a backend dev, this is ideal, just give me data and I'll store it for ya.

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

Only noobs get hit by this (called SQL injection). That's why we have leads review code...

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

Two likely reasons:

• CSV got involved somewhere
• JavaScript