Parsing UBB code

[Jacquie Barker]

I've had many situations where seemingly valid UBB code doesn't get parsed correctly by the JavaRanch website.

I've also had situations where I've "bungled" UBB code, but when I try to retrieve my post to edit it, not all of the post comes back to me.

If the parsing logic is written in Java, I'd be happy to volunteer to take a look at fixing it ... don't know whom to approach in this regard?

Best,

Jacquie

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Hi Jacquie,

If you have a post that you think is valid but is not displaying correctly, then post a link to it in this forum, and one of the bartenders / sheriffs might be able to spot where the problem is.

The problem with text disapearing on an edit seems to occur when there is some combination of quote tags and code tags and, if I remember correctly, in such circumstances everything up until the start of the code tag is lost (I have been very lucky that I have not experienced this problem for over a year, so I have forgotten the exact details).

Unfortunately this message board software is written in Perl (see here for details), and appears to have a great many interdependencies. So it is rare for the code to be changed. That link by the way, came from our JavaRanch FAQ.

Regards, Andrew

[Jim Yingst]

Yeah, the Perl code that checks this stuff is... ahem... not well-factored for readability. I'm aware of the problem with mixing [code] and

tags - I think most of us deal with it by not using quote tags, ever. (I also don't use reply-with quote.) In one of your (Jacquie's) posts you mentioned having troubles related to using } to close things - I've never noticed a problem like this, so I would be interested in seeing an example of input which demonstrates this problem. (You can send the text to jim at javaranch dot com.) You could also experiment a bit making some test posts in this thread, or create a test topic somewhere else (Meaningless Drivel perhaps). If you do the latter, you can delete the entire topic later by deleting the first post of the topic.

[Jacquie Barker]

Of course, if I try to "break" things, I'll probably fail!



But, let's see if I can get a post to intentionally break ... will keep you posted!
[ July 19, 2005: Message edited by: Jacquie Barker ]

[Jacquie Barker]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Yeah, the Perl code that checks this stuff is... ahem... not well-factored for readability. I'm aware of the problem with mixing [code] and

tags - I think most of us deal with it by not using quote tags, ever. (I also don't use reply-with quote.)

Yes, you are right -- I do believe that it's when I've used reply-with-quote, combined with a code example ... is there no hope of getting that fixed? Reply with quote can be handy.