Re: Newbie seeking VB to ANSI C Conversion assistance

"Christopher Benson-Manica" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> What happens if strlen(argv[1]) is larger than 255?  255 characters will
be
> written to userName, giving you an unterminated string.  Even if the
prototype
> for main were correct (it isn't) and if the code checked argc to make sure
> that argv[1] exists before attempting to use it (it doesn't), this fact
makes
> this a dangerous example to follow.

Yes, it has been pointed out to me that this code sample is a fairly inept
sample set of code, but it was the sample template that was provided, so I
thought I should stick to it as best as possible.

While technically you are correct that a well written program should handle
all idiot-user mistakes and all types of input, the practicality of the
situation is far easier to deal with.  We make the variables substantially
larger than they will ever need to be(who has a 250 character name, after
all?), and everything more or less takes care of itself.  Instead of
spending all sorts of time figuring out how users will work to break the
code, it's going to be used so infrequently as to warrant handling
exceptions on a case by case basis.  Risk vs Reward analysis and all that.
I could spend many hours making DAMN sure the thing never broke, OR I could
spend a lot less time, and just make it so huge that it'll never be pressed
like that.  I realize that it's not the ideal way to do code, but time is
money, and this code doesn't warrant any more time than the bare minimum to
get it working.

I can hear all you coding purists out there gasping for breath right now...
on this job, it's just not worth it to totally idiot-proof the thing...
Besides, I believe the argument being passed in is going to be truncated at
250 characters or something, so we should be covered.

--
Jeff Goslin - MCSD - www.goslin.info
It's not a god complex when you're always right