Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen
not far off those sites and web forms that still don't allow an apostrophe, which is a pain when you have one in your surname lol.
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There's no excuse for that, although I know from experience that you can put in what checks you want on a web form and someone will come up with data they say is valid that trips any checks.
The Uni where I work has obviously spent a lot of money on a student information system. Then, after several years of use, we got a student who actually does have only a forename (no middle or surname), and the system refused to accept the entry. We ended up entering a . as the surname.
Even in my own job, I've encountered it. We allow students to download certain software free, but we do need a way of tracking who has downloaded what (some companies require access to the info, but we also need to prepare reports to the Uni from time to time). I developed a simple website that enabled the students to download their software easily. It also captured the relevant information. One of the items we needed to store is the student name (as I do not have access to the student database so cannot retrieve it automatically). When designing the database for the site, I allowed 25 characters for the forename and 25 for the surname. Within 3 days of launch, a student with a 50 character surname had attempted to download something and (obviously) failed.
The restrictions were quickly changed.