V 2.1
Added a product, it unexpectedly appeared in the very beginning of the product list. Reason: product name was entered starting with a space, by a mistake. Leading and trailing space can supposedly be safely trimmed from the product names automatically.
Leading space in product names
- 56
- 354
- 10/6/2009
- Switzerland
A proposal to implement trimming leading and trailing white space from the product names. For me not doing so looks rather as a bug, though I am not aware about all possible scenarios in all cultures, therefore it was placed here.
I have no problem with implementing it for myself but I do think it might be useful for others as well.
I have no problem with implementing it for myself but I do think it might be useful for others as well.
- 56
- 354
- 10/6/2009
- Switzerland
I noticed it in the admin area after spending some time on searching the product that did not appeared where expected in the list and thinking about what is happened to just entered product :)
The same applies to SEO friendly URL names: if they are entered with a trailing white space (already managed to enter such an URL and notice the trailing space) - it is saved in the DB.
My 20+ years of computer user experience tell me that in such situations trimming white space is to expect, and I do really expect it. My a little less than 15 years of experience as a software developer tell me that if something is expected by the user and is not implemented - it is most probably a bug, while a bug report (even if erroneous) is not an attack. The same experience tells me that such small things may lead to great confusions: it is usually much easier and faster to find and fix a bug that crashes your app. than to figure out that some strange problem with it is due to some invisible on the screen white space (affecting for instance string comparisons, which may occur in numerous scenarios) - the devil sits in little things :). I believe that it is safer to prevent the situations in which such problem may appear from the very beginning, unless there is a sounding reason not to do so.
In brief: it is perhaps easier to prevent storing most probably erroneously entered white space than to think whether it might produce some negative effect or not.
There might be users who consider the ability to have an URL (for instance) with trailing white space to be a feature. However I suppose the most of us would like to avoid such URL-s, etc.
The same applies to SEO friendly URL names: if they are entered with a trailing white space (already managed to enter such an URL and notice the trailing space) - it is saved in the DB.
My 20+ years of computer user experience tell me that in such situations trimming white space is to expect, and I do really expect it. My a little less than 15 years of experience as a software developer tell me that if something is expected by the user and is not implemented - it is most probably a bug, while a bug report (even if erroneous) is not an attack. The same experience tells me that such small things may lead to great confusions: it is usually much easier and faster to find and fix a bug that crashes your app. than to figure out that some strange problem with it is due to some invisible on the screen white space (affecting for instance string comparisons, which may occur in numerous scenarios) - the devil sits in little things :). I believe that it is safer to prevent the situations in which such problem may appear from the very beginning, unless there is a sounding reason not to do so.
In brief: it is perhaps easier to prevent storing most probably erroneously entered white space than to think whether it might produce some negative effect or not.
There might be users who consider the ability to have an URL (for instance) with trailing white space to be a feature. However I suppose the most of us would like to avoid such URL-s, etc.