Forum OpenACS Q&A: ad_form character size limit for text area widget?

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1: ad_form character size limit for text area widget?
Posted by Gregor Obernosterer on 01/13/03 10:55 AM
does anybody know whether the ad_form implicitly sets a character limit on text area widgets?

Underneath is an example of a form:

# We build a list of all possible widgets for the form
set all_widgets {
  {document_id:key}
  {title:text {label "Title*"} {html {size 50}}}
  {title:text {label "Name*"} {html {size 50}}}
  {expiry_date:date {label "Expiry Date"}}
  {countries:text(multiselect),multiple {label "Geographic Reference"} {options {$country_opt}} {value {N/A}} {html {size 4}}}
  {from_date:date {label "Starting Date"}}
  {from_date:date {label "Publication Date"}}
  {to_date:date {label "Ending Date"}}
  {content:text(textarea) {label "Actual [string totitle $pretty_document_type] Content*<BR><FONT SIZE=-2><I>(not required)</I></FONT>"} {value { }} {html {rows 30 cols 50}}}

On submit it happens that some content in the text-area field gets cut-off. I have the suspicion that the editor might use malicious HTML tags.

Any idea?

/gregor

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2: Re: ad_form character size limit for text area widget? (response to 1)
Posted by Ola Hansson on 01/13/03 11:26 AM
Hi Gregor,

No it does not set a character length limit on any text types, and I don't think the form builder does either.

As I'm sure you are aware, TEXTAREA has no maxlength but it can be implemented in ad_form via a validation block... 

-validate {
        {content
         {[string length $content] <= 1000}
         "\"content\" can maximum be 1000 characters long"
        }
    }
...for example should do the trick.

Sorry, I have no clue about the "cutting off" part.

Cheers.

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3: Re: ad_form character size limit for text area widget? (response to 1)
Posted by Gregor Obernosterer on 01/13/03 11:57 AM
I think the users are most probably using malicious HTML tags that force the text to be cut off. Another indication is probably as this phenomenon does not always occur.

thanxs for the reply!

/gregor

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4: Re: ad_form character size limit for text area widget? (response to 3)
Posted by Jeff Davis on 01/13/03 12:03 PM
You should also check that you are doing a POST rather than
a GET for the form submission since GET can be limited to as
short as 4k in some browsers.
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5: Re: ad_form character size limit for text area widget? (response to 1)
Posted by James Thornton on 01/13/03 10:45 PM
In the past, textarea widgets have had max size of 33K, but I think that limit may have changed in modern browsers. If you are using the POST method and you are having problems, this may be the reason. If you are using GET, try using POST.
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6: Re: ad_form character size limit for text area widget? (response to 5)
Posted by C. R. Oldham on 01/13/03 10:50 PM
On a semi-related note we have discovered arbitrary limits in the size of listboxes in earlier versions of Netscape on the Macintosh.  I don't know if those had been resolved in later versions of the Mac System or in MacOS X (it was clearly a Mac Toolbox issue).
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7: Re: ad_form character size limit for text area widget? (response to 1)
Posted by Gregor Obernosterer on 01/14/03 11:12 AM
many thanxs for the tips! The form method is POST, so this should be o.k. I will investigate further. If I find out I'll let you know.

/Gregor

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8: Re: ad_form character size limit for text area widget? (response to 1)
Posted by Gregor Obernosterer on 01/14/03 04:45 PM
in respect to this thread I found that entry https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=52573