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A word that, while sadly necessary in many ordinary sentences, screws up Keenspot's post function. | A word that, while sadly necessary in many ordinary sentences, screws up Keenspot's post function. | ||
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| + | ==Technical Explanation== | ||
| + | This bug is caused by a security misfeature, designed to prevent arbitrary SQL lookups; it's actually triggered by putting "select" and "from" on the same line. However, the first line of a post is considered to be on the same line as the hint text, which defaults to "Tip: Styles can be applied quickly to selected text.", so this bug's most common manifestation is when you put "from" on the first line. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Note that this misfeature doesn't even check for whole words; "selected ''foo'' from" is not valid SQL for any value of ''foo'', and yet this fix would reduce the bugs produced by this misfeature. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Workarounds== | ||
| + | These are for the most common case. If you're using "select" as well as "from", you'll need to restructure the paragraph, possibly splitting it into two paragraphs. | ||
| + | *'''Mouse over a formatting button''' - this will change the hint text to not contain "select". | ||
| + | *'''Leave the first line of your post blank''' - this will cause the hint text's "select" and your "from" to count as being on separate lines. (The system will strip that first line, so this doesn't visibly affect the post.) | ||
| + | *'''Add a first line with some text describing what you're doing''' - Similar to the previous workaround, but it does visibly affect the post. This has the benefit of showing others what you're doing, so that someone who's encountered the 404 but hasn't seen any workarounds described could still learn to use this workaround just by seeing your post. Including the word "bug" in this text may trip occasional searches by Keen admins for bugs discovered by users, but this remains entirely hypothetical at this time. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Other workarounds have been advanced, generally involving the post title, that work in cargo-cult fashion by getting you to mouse over a formatting button. | ||
[[Category:Evil]] | [[Category:Evil]] | ||
Current revision as of 12:52, 20 May 2007
A word that, while sadly necessary in many ordinary sentences, screws up Keenspot's post function.
Technical Explanation
This bug is caused by a security misfeature, designed to prevent arbitrary SQL lookups; it's actually triggered by putting "select" and "from" on the same line. However, the first line of a post is considered to be on the same line as the hint text, which defaults to "Tip: Styles can be applied quickly to selected text.", so this bug's most common manifestation is when you put "from" on the first line.
Note that this misfeature doesn't even check for whole words; "selected foo from" is not valid SQL for any value of foo, and yet this fix would reduce the bugs produced by this misfeature.
Workarounds
These are for the most common case. If you're using "select" as well as "from", you'll need to restructure the paragraph, possibly splitting it into two paragraphs.
- Mouse over a formatting button - this will change the hint text to not contain "select".
- Leave the first line of your post blank - this will cause the hint text's "select" and your "from" to count as being on separate lines. (The system will strip that first line, so this doesn't visibly affect the post.)
- Add a first line with some text describing what you're doing - Similar to the previous workaround, but it does visibly affect the post. This has the benefit of showing others what you're doing, so that someone who's encountered the 404 but hasn't seen any workarounds described could still learn to use this workaround just by seeing your post. Including the word "bug" in this text may trip occasional searches by Keen admins for bugs discovered by users, but this remains entirely hypothetical at this time.
Other workarounds have been advanced, generally involving the post title, that work in cargo-cult fashion by getting you to mouse over a formatting button.
