[WEB4LIB] RE: Before I recreate...

[Garwood, Steve]

Hi Nathan/all,

Thank you for the webdeveloper reference, I'll check it out. 

In general I'm not trying to do anything high falutten (sp) and if someone
figures out how to view the source code to get into a particular page, well
then more power to them.

Javascript was suggested as the best way to go for this as our tech guys
didn't want something running server side...I got the request as I do the
library's web site design.

Our idea was to just have a page which would make it appear that we were
doing some high tech security check where all we were doing was checking the
first five digits of a barcode and then seeing if the barcode itself was 14
digits long. This to us seemed like enuf security to keep out 99% of the
people who didn't have the proper barcode (and if others snuck thru so be
it). Since this isn't for an Ebsco/Wilson etc. kind of database letting
someone else handle the barcode check wasn't an option.

Thanks to everyone who's mailed me things so quickly...this has to be the
quickest list I've ever seen :-)

STeve

-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan Williams [mailto:nathanw at nils.lib.il.us]
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 4:47 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Before I recreate...


That's actually a great use for Javascript.  It sounds like Mike's confusing
authentication with validation.  If your just trying to ensure that the
barcode is of a certain format, javascript would work fine.  Here's a quick
description of that sort of form validation:
http://www.webdeveloper.com/javascript/javascript_form_verification.html
Nathan Williams
North Suburban District Library
Loves Park, IL

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Novak [mailto:prx000 at mail.connect.more.net]
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 3:26 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Before I recreate...


>the proverbial wheel. I'm not a Javascript expert in any way, but a library
>in my system wants to have a barcode validation on a webpage that would act
>as a gateway for a particular web-based database they've developed.

Steve,

What web server are you running?  I may be way off on this, but when I hear
"Javascript" I think client-side processing, which wouldn't be a good idea
for this application as you wouldn't want patrons to be able to view the
code.   I do this sort of thing with VBScript in an ASP page under IIS 4.0,
but any kind of server-side script (e.g. Perl) should be easy to whip up.
For what it's worth, it would also be easy to throw in a check for your
local IP range so in-house users don't need to enter the barcode number.
[These probably aren't the best solutions for something you want to keep
REALLY secure, but it sounds like you just are looking to keep it
pretty-much secure. :) ]

You could even check the check-digit if your barcodes use them.  That gets
kind of confusing to code though; I hacked out a sample page for our 14
digit dynix barcodes (try it at http://www.ucpl.lib.mo.us/checkdigit.asp)
but it's such a convoluted algorithm that I don't know if my script is 100%
accurate...

Mike Novak
Technology Coordinator & Reference Librarian
University City Public Library