Tab characters in answers lead to a bad parse

2008-12-17T21:14:43Z

Using GetResults.java I would occasionally see: "Error processing HIT results for HIT <hitid>: 25"

I traced this to an ArrayIndexOutOfBounds Exception at line 109 of HitResultProcessor.java in processAnswers()

The real culprit is in HitResults.java HitResults.getAnswers(). It builds a tab-delimited list without first checking if the answer strings already contain the delimiter.

I've patched the problem with the following lines of code. However, I assume that the tab characters are not meaningful and can be removed. A better solution may be to enclose everything in quotes.

In HitResults.getAnswers() at ~line: 203 of HitResults.java:

if (answerValue != null) {
//PATCH - Tabs in Data Bug - Patched 17Dec2008 By kbcarle@gmail.com//
answerValue = answerValue.replaceAll(Character.toString(DELIMITER), " ");
//optional: also replace newline chars
answerValue = answerValue.replaceAll("\n", " ");
//END PATCH
result += answerValue + DELIMITER;
}

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Tab characters in answers lead to a bad parse