Re: [ic] Scarey -- (More Info) Can Not Identify Error

[cfm@maine.com]

On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 10:50:25AM -0400, Christopher VanOosterhout wrote:
> 
> Thanks so much for your input on this ... I do have a couple of follow ups 
> that may help me ... if you could.
> 
> 
> > > The first line of the customer's order confirmation
> > > said:  UNEXPECTED_DATA_AFTER_ADDRESS@.SYNTAX-ERROR
> 
> What I mean is that the confirmation email the customer received had the 
> line (shown above).
> 
> 
> > > Do you have any idea what may have happened to send a confirmation to the
> > > customer but nothing to me as the store administrator, when I usually 
> > get a
> > > copy of the orders?
> >
> >I'd guess the garbage in the input created something that could not
> >be processed at some point down the line.

??? That **is** my idea (or guess if you prefer).

> 
> You mean before Interchange sent me a confirmation?  It seems like if a 
> user can enter anything "illegal" that would cause a users order to not be 
> processed or not sent on to the store administrator, that it should be 
> caught and filtered or refused back to the customer asking for clarification.
> 
> >We filter everything to clean ASCII at various points.  Since we typically
> >print packing lists and invoices with TeX, now and then a printout will
> >silently die on some special combination of characters.  We add that 
> >combination
> >to our filter. But a simple null char in a form can kill it too.  Suppose you
> >stack two addresses; mv will return them null delimited.  Depending on what
> >you try to do with that you can kill your process/output/whatever.
> 
> Could you give me more information on this?  Is the filtering of clean 
> ASCII happening before email order notices would be sent to the 
> administrator (if you were using that option)?  I probably did not make it 
> clear ... I never received an order confirmation on this order via email 
> and is "sounds" like what you are talking about may happen sometime after that.

I was just using that as example.  Anything in the input data that kills
a print/email/whatever process is NOT going to kill the order.  The order
is already placed before the confirm goes out.  Regardless, the important
issue is establishing a process to catch those exceptions.

> 
> > > This of course is a major concern ... since I hate the ideas that 
> > customers
> > > are out there ordering products and not being serviced.
> >
> >We don't use the minivend order email,
> 
> Is there a reason you do not use it?  Do you feel it is some way unreliable 
> or do you have another concern?  Or just do not want to mess with PGP?  Why?

System reasons.  Nothing to do with reliability.  I mentioned that 
for context/version.  What breaks us might well not break minivend/ic.

cfm

-- 

Christopher F. Miller, Publisher                             cfm@maine.com
MaineStreet Communications, Inc         208 Portland Road, Gray, ME  04039
1.207.657.5078                                       http://www.maine.com/
Content management, electronic commerce, internet integration, Debian linux
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