[db-wg] Suggestion: un-necessary error message
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Tim Streater
tim.streater at dante.org.uk
Thu Jun 15 13:30:28 CEST 2006
At 11:08 15/06/2006, Denis Walker wrote: >Tim Streater wrote: > > > At 10:52 15/06/2006, Marco Hogewoning wrote: > > > >> On Wed, Jun 14, 2006 at 12:23:54PM +0100, Niall O'Reilly wrote: > >> > Begin forwarded message (extracted from a recent update attempt): > >> > > >> > >changed: Niall.oReilly at ucd.ie 20060614 > >> > >changed: oonagh.oreilly at comreg.ie 20040323 > >> > >changed: hostmaster at ripe.net 20041222 > >> > >source: RIPE > >> > >***Error: The dates in the changed: attributes should be in > >> > >accending order > >> > > '20040323' was found after '20060614' > >> > > >> > Wouldn't it be just as easy to sort the attributes into the correct > >> > order > >> > as to generate an error message? > >> > >> Agreed, and as I also just got bitten by this. The strange thing is that > >> at it also reports 'syntax check passed' first and then spits out the > >> error. Isn't this a syntax error ? > > > > > > > > Nothing wrong with the syntax of the statements. It's a semantic > > matter - there is meaning in the content of the statements that > > implies an order. However it would seem reasonable that this be fixed > > up automatically. > >We can easily 'fix' this by re-arranging the order of the changed >attributes. But the convention has always been that the software does >little or no changes to users data. If the semantics are wrong, we >report it and let you fix it. There are many simple errors like this the >software can fix. But once we go down this road we run the risk of >automatically fixing problems in a way that the user did not want. > >This changed attribute date is one example. This error may be because >the user put a new changed attribute with the current date before a >previous changed attribute. Or it may be because the new changed >attribute had the wrong date, but was in the correct place. In the >latter case, if the software re-orders the attributes, you will not >realise that you have used a date of 200501 instead of 200601. A very >common mistake in the new year. Yes, that makes good sense. -- Tim
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