Web Wiz Forums - Bug: Max Signature Size

Print Page | Close Window

Bug: Max Signature Size

Printed From: Web Wiz Forums
Category: Web Wiz Web App Support Forums
Forum Name: Web Wiz Forums
Forum Description: Support forum for Web Wiz Forums application.
URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=19444
Printed Date: 12 April 2026 at 4:04am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Bug: Max Signature Size

Posted By: wistex
Subject: Bug: Max Signature Size
Date Posted: 20 April 2006 at 3:15am

I just found something weird on this site. I went into my profile and entered a signature just under 200 characters long (including BBCode). The message in the profile said it allowed 200 characters. However, when I previewed it, and when I saved it, it appeared to cut it off at approx. 150 characters. In fact, it orginally cut off the signature in the middle of a link tag, which screwed up any posts where I had posted (since the tag got cut off and was never closed).

Perhaps it says 200 in one place and 150 in another?

-------------
http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions
http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums

Replies:

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 20 April 2006 at 9:41am

Once the BBCode is converted into HTML code it might pad up your signature to over 200 characters.

-------------
https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting
https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting

Posted By: wistex
Date Posted: 20 April 2006 at 3:42pm

That's what I suspected because when I went back to edit it, it showed HTML instead of BBCode for one of the links, the one that got chopped off in the middle.

And when I viewed any posts with my chopped off signature, it broke all the tables because the last link was

<a href="http://www.cutoffdoma

which you will notice is missing the closing > bracket, which screws up any page the signature is showed on.

Perhaps you need to allow more than 200 characters in the database knowing that the BBCode gets converted to HTML.

Example: [url ]http://www.caribbeanchoice.com[/url ] seems to get converted to [ url=http://www.caribbeanchoice.com]http://www.caribbeanchoice.com[/url ] which is twice as long and is saved in the database as <a href=" http://www.caribbeanchoice.com - http://www.caribbeanchoice.com ">http://www.caribbeanchoice.com</a>. And if you have multiple links like that and they all do that, it is possible for one of the links to get cutoff mid-tag.

-------------
http://www.wistex.com" rel="nofollow - WisTex Solutions
http://www.caribbeanchoice.com/forums" rel="nofollow - CaribbeanChoice Forums

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 21 April 2006 at 9:48am

I believe I actually set the database up to do the chop at 255 characters.

The reason for this is database performance.

Most supported databases only allow 255 characters in a character column, any more than this and you need to use 'text', 'memo' etc. datatypes.

These datatypes that allow larger amount of text also use more database resources as an entire page with pointers etc. inside the database system itself have to be setup just for this one field, rather than all the tables columns being includes in one page. Which not only uses allot more space within the database to store this data but also means that queries on these fields are slower and more resource intensive.

-------------
https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting
https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting

Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 21 April 2006 at 11:43am

I have just checked in the code and the above is correct.

the user can enter upto 200 characters in their signature, any BBCodes are then converted to HTML, then so that the database field doesn't return an error only the first 255 characters are allowed.

In 99.9% of circumstances this should work fine, you will only get this problem if you enter lots of links which are much shorter in BBcode.

-------------
https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting
https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting