Proposal for Limiting the Length of WML Names

Post by **Dave** » August 6th, 2004, 3:22 am

I'm going to propose that we limit the length of WML element and attribute names to 32 characters.

The reason for this limit is because with the way WML compression works, very long element or attribute names could be used to perform DoS attacks on the server.

Are there any reasons why this shouldn't be done?

Length of attribute values would be unaffected.

David

Post by **Viliam** » August 6th, 2004, 8:43 am

Limiting names to a reasonable length seems OK to me. However, 32 is not enough, see translation files:

"A_Choice_Must_Be_Made_objectives" - 32
"Brother_Against_Brother_objectives" - 34
"Plunging_into_the_Darkness_objectives" - 37
"The_Valley_of_Death-The_Princesss_Revenge_objectives" - 52

IMHO scenario writers should use a bit shorter id's. But as situation is now, 32 is not enough... make it 64, or perhaps 255.

Dacyn · Post by **Dacyn** » August 6th, 2004, 10:01 am

Viliam wrote:"The_Valley_of_Death-The_Princesss_Revenge_objectives" - 52

That name should be shortened anyway - it forces the game to scroll when saving games on that level.

Post by **Viliam** » August 6th, 2004, 10:39 am

Dacyn wrote:That name should be shortened anyway - it forces the game to scroll when saving games on that level.

Each scenario has a name and an id. I am not sure, but I think the names are used for savefile names, not id's. However, to make the name shorter too, seems like a good idea.

Dacyn · Post by **Dacyn** » August 6th, 2004, 10:49 am

Viliam wrote:Each scenario has a name and an id.

Yes I know. In fact I wrote the wiki page on scenarios

Viliam wrote:I am not sure, but I think the names are used for savefile names, not id's.

yes; the IDs are seen in-game only in the case of an error.

Viliam wrote:However, to make the name shorter too, seems like a good idea.

Well usually the names and IDs are basically the same, so if one is changed the other will likely be changed too.