Producing Robust Programs

Producing Robust Programs

1. Sanitisation

   • The process of hiding or protecting data so it cannot be seen or disclosed.
   • Another method of data sanitisation is input sanitisation. Input sanitisation checks data that is entered and removes anything that might be potentially dangerous.
   • Data can be sanitised in several ways. One example of data sanitisation is known as masking. Masking hides visible data by replacing it with something else.

2. Maintainability

   • The process of ensuring that a program is easy to understand, modify and update.
   • In both situations, the understanding of the program, how it works and the purpose of the code will be made easier if the program is written in a maintainable style. This includes using: comments sensible variable names indentation
   • Comments: #ensures the input is restricted to a y or an n
   • Sensible variable names: name1, name2, not AFRICA54
   • Indentation

3. Authentication

   • Verifying the identity of a user
   • The factors of authentication can be broken down into three main groups: Something you are - username, bank account number, or anything that identifies the user uniquely something you know - password, pin, secret answer to a question. Something you have - swipe card, biometrics, any other physical identifying device.
   • Something you are - username
   • Something you know - Password
   • Something you have - biometrics

4. Validation.

   • Checking input is sensible and in the right format
   • Range check - the input must fall within a specified range. This is usually applied to numbers and dates
   • Length check - the input must not be too long or too short.
   • Presence check - a data value must be entered.
   • Format check - the data must be in the correct format, such as entering a date in the format DD/MM/YYYY.