Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2018 January 29

= January 29 =

Record
Is this a record for html encoding of html encoding of....

Many think of having &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;friends with benefits&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; as something that kids do in college, but Indiana University researcher Dr. Debby Herbenick tells CBS News that she was surprised to find that such a large number of people over 30 had their last sexual experience with a buddy. &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Overall, the study found that 13 percent of men and 11 percent of women aged 19-59 said their last sexual encounter was ...

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:58, 29 January 2018 (UTC).


 * Around 2000, when XML was young (HTML hadn't cared, but XML blew up with syntax errors) it was very common to find publishing systems etc. which weren't round-trip invariant or even idempotent.  Putting content in and out would either increase or decrease their encoding by a level (or two!).  Feed them one spare ampersand and away you go, a continually expanding stream of the things.  This was often first noticed, or at least stopped, because something ran out of memory and exploded.  Multi-MB files weren't unusual.
 * The typical fix was to strip ampersands. Not to fix their encoding, but to make them automatically go away. Because this was "simpler".
 * Misunderstood encoding in XML / XSLT, and manager's responses to it, was one of the reasons behind the Forging of the ClueIron.
 * A few years later, I was going through much the same process with UTF-8. The ClueIron was then dusted off and moved to a convenient hook on the side of my desk. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:29, 29 January 2018 (UTC)