ECMAScript parseInt

So I seem to have a love hate relationship with ECMAScript. Today is very much not a loving day for ECMAScript.

I needed to convert text like '06' to an integar, so I just used the parseInt function.

What I did not reliase was that if you do not provide a value for the radix you get very strange results like so:

 js> print(parseInt('06'));   
 6  
 js> print(parseInt('08'));  
 NaN  
 js> print(parseInt('08',10));  
 8  

When you add the radix everthting works as expected as can be seen above.
Note to self: Don't assume functions work the same across all programming languages.

Really enjoyed this video: WAT -> https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

This was a nice 'bug' I found using ECMAScript

js> var a = '1';

js> var b = a + 1;

js> print(b);

11

WAT!

js> var a = 1;

js> var b = a + 1;

js> print(b);

2

 

Java Query Soap HTTP and HTTPS

One of the end points that we query was suddenly changed from HTTP and HTTPS using a self signed cert and invalid host name in the cert. Sadly you can't just change the URL in your config file and everything works. What I needed to do was to change my querySOAP function to work for both HTTP and HTTPS. Here's what I came up with.Oh and this function also supports HTTP authentication. Nice!

      public static String querySoap(String url, String soapAction, String msg, final String username, final String password) {  
           String ret = null;   
           try {  
                boolean HTTPS = false;  
                if( url.substring(0, 5).equalsIgnoreCase("https") ) HTTPS = true;  
                Config c = new Config();  
                Log.log(Level.INFO, "Url: " + url  
                     + "\r\nSoapAction: " + soapAction  
                     + "\r\nSoapMessage: " + msg);       
                URLConnection connection;  
                URL u = new URL(url);       
                if( HTTPS ) {  
                     Log.log(Level.INFO, "We use SSL to connect to : " + url);  
                     // Create a trust manager that does not validate certificate chains  
                     TrustManager[] trustAllCerts = new TrustManager[] {new X509TrustManager() {  
                               public java.security.cert.X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {  
                                    return null;  
                               }  
                               public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {  
                               }  
                               public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] certs, String authType) {  
                               }  
                          }  
                     };  
                     // Install the all-trusting trust manager  
                     try {  
                       SSLContext sc = SSLContext.getInstance("SSL");  
                       sc.init(null, trustAllCerts, new java.security.SecureRandom());  
                       HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultSSLSocketFactory(sc.getSocketFactory());  
                     } catch (Exception e) {  
                     }                 
                     // Create all-trusting host name verifier  
                     HostnameVerifier allHostsValid = new HostnameVerifier() {  
                          public boolean verify(String hostname, SSLSession session) {  
                               return true;  
                          }  
                     };  
                     // Install the all-trusting host verifier  
                     HttpsURLConnection.setDefaultHostnameVerifier(allHostsValid);  
                } else {  
                     Log.log(Level.INFO, "We do not use SSL to connect to : " + url);  
                }  
                connection = u.openConnection();  
                connection.setConnectTimeout(c.httpConTimeout);  
                connection.setReadTimeout(c.httpConReadTimeout);  
                connection.setDoOutput(true);  
                connection.setDoInput(true);  
                connection.setUseCaches(false);  
                connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","text/xml;charset=UTF-8");  
                connection.setRequestProperty("SOAPAction", soapAction);  
                connection.setRequestProperty("User-Agent","Jakarta Commons-HttpClient/3.1");                 
                connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Length","" + msg.length());  
                if( username != null && password != null) {  
                     String login = username + ":" + password;  
                     String encodedLogin = Base64.encodeBytes(login.getBytes());  
                     connection.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic " + encodedLogin);  
                }  
                OutputStream out = connection.getOutputStream();       
                Writer wout = new OutputStreamWriter(out);  
                wout.write(msg);  
                wout.flush();  
                wout.close();  
                StringBuffer strBuf = new StringBuffer();  
                String inputLine;                 
                BufferedReader bufRead = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream(),"UTF-8"));                 
                while ((inputLine = bufRead.readLine()) != null) {  
                     strBuf.append(inputLine);  
                }  
                bufRead.close();  
                ret = strBuf.toString();  
                Log.log(Level.INFO, "SoapResponse: " + ret);  
           } catch (Exception e) {  
                e.printStackTrace();            
           }            
           return ret;  
      }  

Reference: http://www.nakov.com/blog/2009/07/16/disable-certificate-validation-in-java-ssl-connections/

Sunrise

The traffic ain't so bad when you can watch the Sunrise like this:

Note to self: Look for the Good in the World.

Thought for the day: 'While chasing the moon some people miss the flowers blossoming at their feet.'