System and method for capture and processing of overflow characters from user input

• US 7,603,365 B2
• Filed: 01/23/2006
• Issued: 10/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Chen, Yen-Fu, Selvage, Mei Yang, Dunsmoir, John W., Ramamoorthy, Venkatesan, Bosma, John H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ali; Mohammad
• Assistant Examiner(s): LAWSON, DONALD L
• Application Number:
  US11/337,849
• Publication Number:
  US 20070088705A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,359 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/100, 707/6, 707/200, 709/217, 714/781
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24534 Query rewriting; Transformation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A system and method for preventing user-input text strings of illegal lengths from being submitted to a database where, for each character in the string, a character length is determined in quantities of digital units of storage according to an encoding schema, the character lengths are accumulated into a total string length, also measured in digital units of storage, and the total string length is compared to one or more database input field requirements such as non-null and maximum length specifications. If a limit is not met, the system and method are suitably disposed in a manner to block or prevent submission of the user-input string to the database. Overflow sub-strings are extracted and stored from input strings which exceed the input length limit, and are further processed to yield additional storage and resource allocation.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method providing:

a computing platform with a processor and memory electronically receiving by a user'"'"'s networked device a user-provided string of characters intended for input into a field in a remote computer database by;

providing a hidden field associated with a visible user input field in a web page;

receiving by said hidden field a field storage limit from a database front-end application;

receiving by said front-end database application via said hidden and visible fields a user-provided string of characters intended for input into a database, said string being encoded according to a Unicode schema;

accumulating a total string storage length by;

for each character in said string, determining a character storage value by;

(a) assigning a storage value of 2 to any character having a Unicode value of zero;

(b) assigning a storage value of 1 to any character having a Unicode value between 1 and 127, inclusive;

(c) assigning a storage value of 2 to any character having a Unicode value between 128 and 4095, inclusive; and

(d) assigning a storage value of 3 to any character having a Unicode value of 4096 or greater; and

accumulating said assigned character storage values to yield a total string storage requirement;

comparing said total string storage length to said field storage limit received by said hidden field

responsive to said total string storage length exceeding said string input storage limit, extracting a portion of said string of characters which extends beyond said string input storage limit,

storing said extracted portion as an overflow sub-string of characters;

performing at least one predetermined automatic processing action on said overflow sub-string to yield an action result, including capturing said user-provided string of characters in a administrator log; and

subsequent to capturing a plurality of strings of characters in said log, adjusting said field storage limit value and an associated database field definition to reduce instances of user input exceeding database field size.

2. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said automatic processing action comprises storing said overflow sub-string in an overflow field of said database.

3. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said automatic processing action comprises performing a statistical analysis upon one or more overflow sub-strings, and, responsive to such statistical analysis, performing a system resource allocation to accommodate increased storage to handle without overflow said input strings.

4. The method as set forth in claim 3 wherein said step of performing a system resource allocation is performed by an on-demand computing system.

5. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said predetermined automatic processing action is selected by evaluation of a service level agreement.

6. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said predetermined automatic processing action is selected by evaluation of a user'"'"'s organization role.

7. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said steps of determining, accumulating, comparing, extracting and storing are performed by a plug-in program product disposed in said front-end application server.

8. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said steps of determining, accumulating, comparing, extracting and storing are performed by a web services system accessible via a network by said front-end application server.

9. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said steps of determining, accumulating, comparing, extracting and storing are performed by a plug-in program product disposed in said user'"'"'s networked device.

10. The method as set forth in claim 1 wherein providing a hidden field is performed by a member of a group of a strut and a Java Server Face.

11. The method as set forth in claim 1 further comprising:

storing a database catalog as a cache on a database client device;

performing said steps of accumulating and comparing by said client device such that only checked and qualified input strings are submitted to a front-end application program.

12. The method as set forth in claim 11 wherein said accumulating and comparing are performed during periods of disconnection between said client device and said front-end application program, and wherein said submission and blocking are performing during periods of connection between said client device and said front-end application program.