A quiet lunch break.
Jul. 4th, 2002 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrisvenusI have a quiet lunch break so I thought I'd try a life update. A lot of it has been forgotten since it is so long since I last posted but I'll just try to describe the here-and-now feelings.
Work has been *Very* stressful over the last few days. the servers are reaching all time new lows in stability which isn't actually my problem but there are some very stressed people around and the atmosphere is... well, its pretty much as you can probably imagine it. This came to a peak when the site stopped working entirely and was down for a large part of yesterday and nearly resulted in a rebuild from scratch of the entire half dozen servers.
My work hasn't been too bad compared to that. I've been doing some fun programming writing validation components to do clever complex validation for the upcoming italian site. I've actually quite enjoyed it.
On the other side of things Datacash (payment provider for website) have been doing bizarre things. I am trying to programatically access a CSV file that requires POST to access with appropriate data. When my program tries datacash doesn't seem to find the data. Posting it to a page that just returns all the form variables shows them all to be there though which is weird. Datacash and I both seem to be stumped as to what is wrong. Unfortunately this means they balem me and that the onus of proving it is their problem (if it is) is on me. :(
On other stuff... Saw krys last night which was cool. I picked her up from work and we headed back to mine for a bit. A little bit of XBox followed by some Buffy goodness and then topped off with some Simpsons. Not forgetting the hugs. This happy scene ended when matt came and picked her up. They decided not to hang around and so wandered off and left me to play Project Gotham Racing (PGR).
PGR is a very cool game whcih I can't be bothered to go into detail describing now but basically various cars, various circuits, nice slides round corners and various other things get you Kudos (points) and the further you get the more cars and tracks you get etc. I have been driving some very cool ferraris and thoroughly enjoying the game. It would seem that my driving time is up above 20 hours now which isn't bad. It is definitely a good lasting game. :)
Now I have a fair bit of work that needs doing. Test plan needs finishing. Sorting out this damn datacash thing and a few other bits and pieces. Plans for tonight? I don't know. Somebody did mention possibility of Ocean's 11 at UPP that I might be up for. Plans for tomorrow? None yet. Plans for the weekend? Maybe go home to parents to finish the moving out process. They are movign at the end of the month so its one of the next few weekends.
Oh, and as a last thing I thought I'd mention that I am sleeping badly at the moment due to waking up at around 3-4AM feeling really thirsty and dehydrated kind of thing. I have tried drinking lots before I go to bed but I still seem to wake up very thirsty. Anybody got any suggestions how to stop this happening or what I'm about to die of or anything else? Just thought I'd ask... :)
Oh well, back to work I guess. Maybe with louder music since the tennis is on next to me relatively loud. :)
Work has been *Very* stressful over the last few days. the servers are reaching all time new lows in stability which isn't actually my problem but there are some very stressed people around and the atmosphere is... well, its pretty much as you can probably imagine it. This came to a peak when the site stopped working entirely and was down for a large part of yesterday and nearly resulted in a rebuild from scratch of the entire half dozen servers.
My work hasn't been too bad compared to that. I've been doing some fun programming writing validation components to do clever complex validation for the upcoming italian site. I've actually quite enjoyed it.
On the other side of things Datacash (payment provider for website) have been doing bizarre things. I am trying to programatically access a CSV file that requires POST to access with appropriate data. When my program tries datacash doesn't seem to find the data. Posting it to a page that just returns all the form variables shows them all to be there though which is weird. Datacash and I both seem to be stumped as to what is wrong. Unfortunately this means they balem me and that the onus of proving it is their problem (if it is) is on me. :(
On other stuff... Saw krys last night which was cool. I picked her up from work and we headed back to mine for a bit. A little bit of XBox followed by some Buffy goodness and then topped off with some Simpsons. Not forgetting the hugs. This happy scene ended when matt came and picked her up. They decided not to hang around and so wandered off and left me to play Project Gotham Racing (PGR).
PGR is a very cool game whcih I can't be bothered to go into detail describing now but basically various cars, various circuits, nice slides round corners and various other things get you Kudos (points) and the further you get the more cars and tracks you get etc. I have been driving some very cool ferraris and thoroughly enjoying the game. It would seem that my driving time is up above 20 hours now which isn't bad. It is definitely a good lasting game. :)
Now I have a fair bit of work that needs doing. Test plan needs finishing. Sorting out this damn datacash thing and a few other bits and pieces. Plans for tonight? I don't know. Somebody did mention possibility of Ocean's 11 at UPP that I might be up for. Plans for tomorrow? None yet. Plans for the weekend? Maybe go home to parents to finish the moving out process. They are movign at the end of the month so its one of the next few weekends.
Oh, and as a last thing I thought I'd mention that I am sleeping badly at the moment due to waking up at around 3-4AM feeling really thirsty and dehydrated kind of thing. I have tried drinking lots before I go to bed but I still seem to wake up very thirsty. Anybody got any suggestions how to stop this happening or what I'm about to die of or anything else? Just thought I'd ask... :)
Oh well, back to work I guess. Maybe with louder music since the tennis is on next to me relatively loud. :)
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CSV file thing
Date: 2002-07-04 06:26 am (UTC)1) Is it possible that the data you're POSTing contains invisible characters which shouldn't be there or contains characters which look like the ones you want but are not ? (This is a weakness of test CGIs which just echo POSTed variables back to you - can't spot it.)
2) Is the thing which processes the POST a blackbox ? If so, is there any guaranteed-to-work test data for it ? If not, could be time to put diagnostics in it (spewing trace data to a file, for example).
3) Are the permissions set correctly on the CSV and the directories which contain it ? I don't know how this works in Windows, but under Linux there are plenty of gotchas involving group membership, directory permissions and suchlike.
Good luck...
Re: CSV file thing
Date: 2002-07-04 06:40 am (UTC)The above means I am fairly sure there are no invisible characters unless this module is introducing them which i think unlikely. Neither are there likely to be "similar" characters.
The datacash thing that processes the POST is unfortunately a black box from my point of view in that I can't poke it to find out where it might be going wrong. I just pass parameters and it passes csv files. The data I am passing it should work since it does seem to work fine if just put in an HTML form and the submit button being pressed. I am currently writing out all the parameters to the windows event log to keep an eye on them and making sure they are being consturcted correctly. It appears they are. Also it is unfortunately (from this point of view) using HTTPS so I can't even packetsniff to find out exactly what it is sending... Though having written that I could in theory packet sniff it to a non-https page to see how it is sending the data...
Permissions shouldn't be a problem since at my end it is doing everything it should permissionwise (in that it is writing out a CSV fiel with the error message in) and at their end it must be fine since it works from a web browser.
This is why I am feeling 100% confused and stuck. I guess my next step will be packetsniffing it to see if it is using some strange system to deliver content. I seem to recall there are a few different ways that HTTP things can transmit POST data...
Oh well. I'll work it out somewhen...
(no subject)
Date: 2002-07-04 06:51 am (UTC)Lx - off to counsellor now, eep...
Waking between 3 and 4 am ?
Date: 2002-07-04 06:57 am (UTC)Do you reckon their problem is the same as yours ?
Just joking.
;-)
Dawn.
PS. On a more serious note avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed - although I guess you probably know that.
Re: Waking between 3 and 4 am ?
Date: 2002-07-04 08:59 am (UTC)Certain lardy foods soak up vast quantities of associated water after you've eaten them.
Oh, and Monosodium Glutamate. So Chinese food loses on two counts...
Re: CSV file thing
Date: 2002-07-04 09:03 am (UTC)The single parameter of body thing sounds a little suspicious. Wouldn't surprise me to find that the thing at the other end is unable to unpack that because it's expecting a multi-field POST (as is more normal).
Do you have the source for your CGI test page ? Does the same page also work for GET requests as well ? If so, that might be the trouble...
Re: CSV file thing
Date: 2002-07-04 09:27 am (UTC)a) write my own test script that I know will properly differentiate between POST and GET parameters. It won't be manual parsing though since I can't be bothered with that at least and its an easy script if I don't. :)
b) Point the program at a the above web page over a non HTTPS connection so I can sniff it and find out exactly what it is sending.
c) Research the various ways of delivering POST data such as the multifield way you suggest since I know there are at least two (my current understanding is that one is similar to the querystring in that it just packs foo=bar&wibble=wobble etc. into the main body and the other is like e-mail attachments in that it has content separators and that kind of thing. Don't suppose you (or anybody else) has any idea where to get this sort of information in quickly understandable format? Once I've done this step I will know enough to be able to ask datacash how their program interprets stuff. :)
Anyway, cheers for the feedback. It helps me get thoughts straight in my head when I am re-iterating them at other people. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-07-04 10:21 am (UTC)One symptom isn't much to go on, but random thirsts at illogical times is sometimes evidence of diabetes.
Could be anything, though.
jdcxxx