Illegal characters

[Xeno]

I just tried to sign up, but I failed. Here's the error message that was presented to me:

Your Rulername either contains illegal characters or is too long or too short (2-20).
Your Planetname either contains illegal characters or is too long or too short (2-20).

I wasn't doing anything fancy at all. The characters that were rejected were simply ' and ` (common signs in many languages, English included).

Any chance this is going to change?


Xeno
...who still hasn't signed up.

[wakey]

If I heard right PA is running off a mysql database now. If this is right I know for a fact that the database wont accept the likes of ' without them being escaped first (basically meaning they need a \ placed before them)

It appears that whoever has coded the signup page decided to forbid these charchters rather than write code to escape them before putting them into the db and later when they need retrieved remove the redundant \ from the string

[Xeno]

Thanks for the input, wakey.

I'm still hoping Spinner & co. will change this and state so in this thread.


Xeno

[DarkAngel]

yeh "~" is also an illegal character rather annoyingly :/

[Chax]

2-20 for ruler and planet but only 5-10 for login name? What on earth is the point of that?

[A2]

Valid characters are:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890
'space'

This is unlikely to change.

[Scoot951]

Originally posted by Chax
2-20 for ruler and planet but only 5-10 for login name? What on earth is the point of that?

My guess is becuase it's harder to guess a 5-letter (70 mil combos my calculator tells me) word than 2 (1400), and you can't login using a ruler name.

[Tactitus]

Originally posted by Scoot951
My guess is becuase it's harder to guess a 5-letter (70 mil combos my calculator tells me) word than 2 (1400), and you can't login using a ruler name.

Surely the password protects the user name though? A valid argument can be made for requiring a password to be at least 5 (or more) characters in the interests of security; but given that I really don't see how that argument can be applied to user names.

[Chax]

Originally posted by Scoot951
My guess is becuase it's harder to guess a 5-letter (70 mil combos my calculator tells me) word than 2 (1400), and you can't login using a ruler name.

It's easier to guess a username when the limit is 5-10 characters than if it is 2-20 characters.

Just because the option exists doesn't mean people will use it

[Scoot951]

Originally posted by Tactitus
Surely the password protects the user name though? A valid argument can be made for requiring a password to be at least 5 (or more) characters in the interests of security; but given that I really don't see how that argument can be applied to user names.

Yea, but having both means twice the protection. Someone might know your password from previous rounds or other games or wherever, but needing to figure out the user name just makes it more secure.



Not that it matters much, odds are half the people out there use their IRC nick and 'password'.

[dabult]

You cant use > in the galname any longer

[Xeno]

Originally posted by A2
Valid characters are:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890
'space'

This is unlikely to change.

This is ignorant. I almost wanna say "xenofobic", even.


Xeno

[dabult]

All hail the UK Gestapo.



:\

[Scoot951]

Originally posted by Xeno
This is ignorant. I almost wanna say "xenofobic", even.


Xeno

But instead you would say "xenophobic".

[wakey]

Originally posted by A2
Valid characters are:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890
'space'

This is unlikely to change.

I can understand why certain charachters have been made illegal HOWEVER surely things like , ' _ and - are valid for use as names and should be allowed

ie Wakey of Wakey's World
or Von-Neuman of CPU
or Street_Rat of Oz
or Veni, vedi, vinci of Latin

Would all be rejected as planet/ruler name combinations due to illegal charachters for no real valid reason.

If this same restriction is also impossed on galaxy names ect its going to cause even great problems

[Xeno]

Originally posted by Scoot951
But instead you would say "xenophobic".

Well put. My mother's tongue made a freudian slip.


Xeno

[(°>]

If they are using PHP some charcters can do nasty stuff to a MYSQL database query.
Unless they use addslashes and stripslashes ....
but it's easier to just limit the input to alphanumeric

if (!preg_match("/^[a-z0-9]+$/i", $username)) {echo ("Alphanumeric characters only.") ; exit;}

Shame \o/ but it's what I'd do.

[dabult]

Originally posted by wakey

If this same restriction is also impossed on galaxy names ect its going to cause even great problems

Seems there is the same restriction to galnames yes :/

[FSW]

Over-use of some characters can be annoying. However, - and _ should be allowed...
[ and ] would be useful for tags, as well.

[Scoot951]

Originally posted by FSW
Over-use of some characters can be annoying. However, - and _ should be allowed...
[ and ] would be useful for tags, as well.

ack, didn't even think of that...no brackets, parens, or anything other than spaces to seperate tags...maybe it's their attempt to stop people from using tags, but you know they're gonna try anyways and get something really ugly.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally posted by Scoot951
ack, didn't even think of that...no brackets, parens, or anything other than spaces to seperate tags...maybe it's their attempt to stop people from using tags, but you know they're gonna try anyways and get something really ugly.

I think someone suggested a separate little bit for gal tags in the beta (although I might be going mad so never mind).

[dabult]

Didnt even think of that [] in galnames doesnt work...that really is utter bollox :/

[AzureWrath]

Originally posted by JonnyBGood
I think someone suggested a separate little bit for gal tags in the beta (although I might be going mad so never mind).

yep, we suggested it....