[reportlab-users] Philosophy on validation

[Andy Robinson]

>>At the moment, we determine table width by looking at the longest row in 
>>the input data.  I'll also add an OPTION to accept 'ragged edge' data, 
>>so you can set your tables to work that way if you wish.

This might be worth a thread.

Our position generally is to be as strict as we can about input.

Usually we're building apps which slurp in data from all over the place, 
and it's better to flag up content problems early to the developers or 
calling systems.  In the corporate world the data is ALWAYS a problem; 
the best we can do is tell the calling system that it's their problem, 
not ours!

If we were 'relaxed' about input, we'd end up with more situations where 
it all runs, but the wrong output ends up on somebody's bank statement 
one day, or a chart is missing a series - unnoticed!

The clearest expression of this philosophy is the graphics classes, 
which will complain immediately "on setting" if you set an inappropriate 
colour value, rather than silently failing to display your colour later 
on.  But "ReportLab 3000" (don't ask for a date) will hopefully take 
this further and have very clear specification of what all the published 
objects are, their allowed values and constructors.

The open source "API" is not a simple one where we can examine all 
input, and there are always back doors around it.  In RML, we can be 
much more anal about rejecting bad input because it all arrives in a file.

So, our defaults will generally be strict, but I am always happy to have 
options to relax things.

Have a good weekend everyone,


Andy