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Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on 11/18/89 11:35
Ed <ex@directory> wrote:
> A drop down down list does force a certain level of consistency in the
> answers
Only if users are nice. They should not be expected to be.
> and makes counting the replies relatively straightforward if
> that is the intention.
This is actually a _risk_ in a drop down list: it makes you think you can
avoid checking the incoming data in the form handler. It then becomes
vulnerable to even the most trivial attacks.
> Once you start asking people what country they live in, or come from,
> you can end up with all sorts of problems. For example, try asking
> someone born anywhere in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
> Northern Ireland (that is the official name). You could then get replies
> ranging through:
>
> England
> Northern Ireland
> Scotland
> Wales
> Isle of Man
> UK
> Great Britain
> Britain
Right. So accept them all, or accept just one and link to a document that
lists the countries as you see it.
If you use a drop down list, how is the British user expected to guess
whether whether he should look for his country under "E", "B", "G", or "U"
(or something else) in a list of two hundred countries?
> Republic of Ireland
> (Or is it Eire, or Ireland, but without the North!!)
Well, according to official EU policy, even the _full_ name (long name,
diplomatic protocol name) of the country is "Ireland". I guess that's because
the Irish government wants it that way.
--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html
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