Assumptions when validating user data (Re: [Techtalk] SQL learning pointers)

[Sujita Purushothaman]

Mary wrote:

> On a tangent, you need to be fairly careful with assumptions like these.
>
> For example, if you have international customers, and they have the
> option of providing a phone number, you need to allow the + character,
> because the standard way of specifying international calling codes is
> +[code], eg +1 for the USA, +61 for Australia - the + means that you
> need to dial a carrier dependent number to get the international line.
>
> There's also an obvious problem for international customers if you
> assume phone numbers are a certain length.
>

Also, no one thinks about extensions. Calling the place I work
you really need to know the extension, otherwise it's very difficult
to get the person on the phone. Dept. names keep on changing,
people keep moving to different depts., depts also shift sometimes..
and we have a 1500+ workforce..But I rarely see enough space
for extension in the space for the telephone number.

>
> USA-based sites regularly ask for state details, but only allow two
> characters for the state field, as the US Postal Service has helpfully
> given each state a two letter code. Other countries with states are not
> so lucky - I live in an Australian state with a three digit code, and I
> need to identify my address by either state or postal (not zip) code,
> preferrably both, to receive mail. There are suburbs with the same name
> as my suburb in several Australian states.
>

Oh I have faced this problem so many times. I stay in a place that is
a federal territory - it's a city, so I fill in the city name, then I have
to
fill in the name of the State. But I'm not in any state, it's a federal
territory, one of the 3, so what should I do? Many forms make the
State field mandatory.

> It really discourages me from ordering anything online when I can't
> specify my address sufficiently well that I'm convinced it will be
> delivered to within 1000km of my physical residence.
>
> I know a couple of people who have only one name, ie no surname, or no
> first name if you think of it the other way. They regularly have
> difficulty with computers or forms that require two names.

Here many people use their father's name as surname, as I do.
I think in the US it's common to place the surname first in
official correspondence. So my letters sometimes come
addressed to "Miss Purushothaman" :-)) which is quite funny
for us here as 'Purushothaman' is a male name. (Somewhat
like saying Miss Robert :-) )

Rgds,
Sujita