zlacker

[return to "What's up with all those equals signs anyway?"]
1. ruhith+Vh[view] [source] 2026-02-03 11:56:40
>>todsac+(OP)
The real punchline is that this is a perfect example of "just enough knowledge to be dangerous." Whoever processed these emails knew enough to know emails aren't plain text, but not enough to know that quoted-printable decoding isn't something you hand-roll with find-and-replace. It's the same class of bug as manually parsing HTML with regex, it works right up until it doesn't, and then you get congressional evidence full of mystery equals signs.
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2. lvncel+Ko[view] [source] 2026-02-03 12:40:16
>>ruhith+Vh
> It's the same class of bug as manually parsing HTML with regex, it works right up until it doesn't

I'm sure you already know this one, but for anyone else reading this I can share my favourite StackOverflow answer of all time: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454

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3. umanwi+Z01[view] [source] 2026-02-03 15:59:20
>>lvncel+Ko
Funny how differently people can perceive things. That's my least favorite SO answer of all time, and I cringe every time I see it.

It's a very bad answer. First of all, processing HTML with regex can be perfectly acceptable depending on what you're trying to do. Yes, this doesn't include full-blown "parsing" of arbitrary HTML, but there are plenty of ways in which you might want to process or transform HTML that either don't require producing a parse tree, don't require perfect accuracy, or are operating on HTML whose structure is constrained and known in advance. Second, it doesn't even attempt to explain to OP why parsing arbitrary HTML with regex is impossible or poorly-advised.

The OP didn't want his post to be taken over by someone hamming it up with an attempt at creative writing. He wanted a useful answer. Yes, this answer is "quirky" and "whimsical" and "fun" but I read those as euphemisms for "trying to conscript unwilling victims into your personal sense of nerd-humor".

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4. chucks+Y61[view] [source] 2026-02-03 16:23:29
>>umanwi+Z01
There's nothing that brings joy into this world quite like the guy waiting around to tell people he doesn't like the thing they like.
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