Skip to content

Month: April 2010

Android Flaw: cloning content

Published by Silveira on 2010-04-29

How to reproduce:

1. An application with a bunch of EditText.
2. Go to setup and change the locale of Android.
3. Back to the application.

Expected behavior

Locale changed and input values are the same.

Observed behavior

Input values from the last EditText is copied to all others. Even if it’s a password sensitive EditText.

Variations:
1. Same behavior in a EditText with default TransformationMethod.
2. DatePicker and TimePicker have strange behaviors too. They lose what I was writing on them but they don’t copy content.
3. The behavior was first noticed on the internal component NumberPicker and after that tested on EditText.

Malicious usage scenario:
Someone is filling user/password form in a application, go to the bathroom and forget the phone over a table. Other one gets it, use the flaw and read the user secret password.

Possible cause:
When locale is changed and you enter again in a application, it has to be destroyed and created but somehow old values are filled again. Probably the routine that cares about writing i18n details such orientation (left-to-right/right-to-left) has a bug.

Affected versions:

  • Android 1.6, tested on 2 devices and emulator.
  • Android 2.0, tested on device.
  • Certainly all versions between them and I guess 2.1 also.

Thanks to Diego Almeida who first noticed that behavior on NumberPicker. :]

Update: I filled a issue on Android project. Seems that they know about that behavior and the workaround is to put android:id properties on elements. The problem persists on NumberPicker even when using android:id on them! In fact, is my real problem.

Java: invoking a method by name

Published by Silveira on 2010-04-29 


import java.lang.reflect.*;

public class Foo {
	public void bar(int param){
		System.out.println(param);
	}	

	public static void main(String args[]){
		Object f = new Foo();
		try {
			Method m = f.getClass().getMethod("bar", int.class);
			m.invoke(f, 42);
		} catch (Exception e){
			System.err.println(e);	
		}
	}

}

$ java Foo
42

Android: acessing internal resoures

Published by Silveira on 2010-04-23

a new android I just drew. source-code: android_look.svg. CC-BY-SA as usual.

You can acess internal Android resources such strings, drawables, layouts and others. For example, if you need to create a button with the text “Cancel” you can do:

Using this you are using the internal resource for “Cancel” in that Android and all its i18n. Using the same logic you can access drawables, layouts, etc.

bug invaders

Published by Silveira on 2010-04-22

Sem dúvida os post-its nos tornam mais ágeis e são indispensáveis para metodologias que fazem uso de dashboards como Scrum. Mas o que fazer com as toneladas de post-its que são gerados e descartados? E o impacto ambiental? E o meio ambiente? E as araras-azuis?

Eis minha intervenção artística no escritório. Bug Invaders (sugestão de nome do Diego “Diegão” Andrade), nada mais justo já que umas das funcionalidades dos post-its é manter um rastro dos bugs e issues em aberto.

  • Lixo é ressignificado em arte (ao menos por um período antes de virar lixo outra vez).
  • Deixa o ambiente mais divertido.
  • Pixel art! Foram gastos 48 pixels.
  • Nostalgia.

Invictus

Published by Silveira on 2010-04-18

Poema de William Ernest Henley. Adaptação para português de André Masini retirado do casadacultura.org.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

 Do fundo desta noite que persiste
A me envolver em breu – eterno e espesso,
A qualquer deus – se algum acaso existe,
Por mi’alma insubjugável agradeço.

Nas garras do destino e seus estragos,
Sob os golpes que o acaso atira e acerta,
Nunca me lamentei – e ainda trago
Minha cabe̤a Рembora em sangue Рereta.

Além deste oceano de lamúria,
Somente o Horror das trevas se divisa;
Porém o tempo, a consumir-se em fúria,
Não me amedronta, nem me martiriza.

Por ser estreita a senda Рeu ṇo declino,
Nem por pesada a mão que o mundo espalma;
Eu sou dono e senhor de meu destino;
Eu sou o comandante de minha alma.